


Avenging Knight-Spider #1 [Marvel Universe-1990]

by J_S_Norstein



Category: Marvel (Comics), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Gen, Multiverse, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24081811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_S_Norstein/pseuds/J_S_Norstein
Summary: This is Marvel Universe-1990; a reality whose continuity closely parallels our own.-Late March, 2016-Meet mild-mannered high school nerd Peter Parker.He's not the Peter Parker you're most likely familiar with. Not a science genius. Not from Queens. Definitely not a wise-cracking friendly neighborhood wall-crawler.But tragedy and nerds named Peter Parker go hand in hand in any reality. In this case, the nefarious machinations of a secret organization known as Jörmungandr will set young Peter Parker on a collision course with a destiny both familiar and unique, as…THE AVENGING KNIGHT-SPIDER!
Comments: 6
Kudos: 2





	1. Prelude to the Birthday to End All Birthdays

**Avenging Knight-Spider #1:**

~~_Camped Crusader_ ~~

~~_Wet Hot American Basilisk Nightmare_ ~~

~~_Sleepaway Spidey_ ~~

~~_Summer Camp Super Soldier_ ~~

_[Story subtitle TBA]_

A Novel of Marvel Universe-1990

By Wyllis Tremayne

**1: Prelude to the Birthday to End All Birthdays**

_Night descends swiftly over the city of Argent Reach. It's towers of glass and steel, resplendent with many colored liquid fire in the light of the setting sun, turn black and ominous as obelisk-gravestones in a cemetery for fallen giants as twilight envelopes the town. Some cities never sleep, but in Argent Reach, dusk is synonymous with the urgent need to make oneself scarce._

_Spymistress Alaethia saunters down the shadow-cloaked streets with a nonchalant seductive grace that would draw eyes anywhere else. For the few stragglers she passes on their hurry home, she's an opportunity to practice good sense and gaze aversion._

_Your average pedestrian wouldn't be caught dead loitering out of doors after sunset - The Imperator owns this town by night, and the tyrannical crimelord does not tolerate such flippant defiance._

_But Spymistress Alaethia is hardly your average pedestrian. Trained from childhood as the perfect asset for any covert ops and espionage occasion, there is no intel she cannot prise, no mark she can't seduce, no target she can't eliminate._

_Tonight, her assignment is textbook femme fatale. Her target: Caldus Van Buren, the Imperator himself._

_A confident, devil-may-care smirk turns the corners of her sensuous mouth, and her hips sway with jaunty self-satisfaction. She is in no hurry - she knows exactly what she's getting herself in to, and she is more than prepared. She'll take her time, enjoy the journey; the lioness stalks her quarry, reveling in the prey's obliviousness._

_She turns and strolls down a nondescript alley, the sallow lamplight of the adjoining street at the far end providing just enough illumination to walk by. As she nears the halfway point, motion in a shadowed alcove draws her attention._

_"I should say, Miss - it is rather late to be traversing my streets so… insouciantly," The voice in the shadows brings to mind the mewling moan of a dying tomcat. The kind that smokes several packs a day._

_The voice's owner, a man whose smallness of stature nearly defies rational thought, steps out of the shadows, garishly resplendent in a royal mauve business suit, and otherwise bearing a striking resemblance to the Lucky Charms breakfast cereal mascot. He is followed closely by a gorilla-shaped wall of muscle, just over eight feet in height and nearly as wide._

_"Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Ogierre?" the monster's knuckles popping like fourth of July fireworks as he clenches his fists unequivocally communicate his agreement._

_Perhaps Alaethia was not as prepared as she'd thought she was._

_"Mr. Van Buren…" she struggles to keep the tremor of fear from her voice._

_Her intel docie had contained a detailed profile on Brute Ogierre, the Imperator's right hand thug, but the line about 'Height: 8'3", Weight: 762 lbs.' somehow just didn't do it justice._

_"My dear Miss Alaethia, I see no reason to cling to pretense - we both know why you've come. Feel free to call me 'Lord Imperator' whilst you beg for a swift and painless end."_

_Her heart leaps to her throat, quelling any hope of cheeky banter. He wasn't supposed to know - how could he have known?_

_The diminutive crimelord smirks. "Ah, Spymistress - did you really think I could have acquired as much influence as I have in a lifetime and not have eyes and ears in The League? Frankly I'm disappointed. When they asked me to attend to your fate, I was expecting more than run of the mill wet work."_

_The Imperator makes a slight gesture, and Ogierre lunges as if the master has just cut him loose with a murmered "sic'em."_

_He's fast - far too fast for someone of his size and bulk, and Alaethia is too stunned and too close to evade in time. He deals her a backhanded blow to the cheek. Not more than a wrist-flick, a lovetap by his standards, to be sure, but her vision flickers with stars. When did the pavement turn vertical and get so close to her face?_

_She can see the Imperator looming over her, at which point she realizes she's lying on the ground._

_"Goodbye, miss - wha?!!" The Imperator starts to say, but is distracted by a sudden commotion to her left._

_There is a loud KA-POW! followed by a thunderous THUD-DD. Suddenly, Ogierre is lying prone and unconscious at the Imperator's feet, his big belly skywards._

_A silver edge of light has appeared at the Imperator's cheek, and Alaethia follows it to the bronze hilt of a sword._

_The sword rests comfortably in the hands of a tall, heroically built figure bedecked in a strangely harmonious mishmash of bronze medieval armor plating, gunmetal tactical belts, a billowing midnight blue cloak, and a pearlescent lycra full body jumpsuit._

_"I'd say something like 'why don't you pick on someone your own size,' but I guess the two of you would average out to be doing just that, huh?" He says._

"...someone please give me the proper chemical formula for salicylic acid? Mr. Parker - you've been scribbling away quite studiously - how about it?"

"Huh? Oh, Um…" I said. Quintessential charm and rapier wit - that's me.

I looked down at my notebook. There was a rather detailed but incomplete sketch of Halloway, the Argent Knight rescuing Spymistress Alaethia from the clutches of The Imperator, and very little in the way of chemistry notes.

"Um…" I said again, gathering my thoughts to compose the most accurate answer. Obviously.

"Parker's doodlin’ again, teach!"

A hand that looked suspiciously like it belonged to the real life inspiration for Brute Ogierre seized my notebook and hauled it to the desk to my left. My gaze followed the hand along a hirsute musclebound arm, up a neck better described as a trunk, to a face that banished all illusions of Ogierre having been born of imagination alone. Doyle Durant, or Thag, as he is known to me and a small group of likeminded admirers, scrutinized my artwork through beady eyes, then held the page aloft for all to see.

"Buncha shirtless muscle dudes. See? What are ye, Parker, some kinda nancy?" Thag guffawed with stereotypical enthusiasm.

It's 2016 - is 'nancy' even a slur anymore?

In Thag's defense, the only character on the page I hadn't rendered to a recognizable level of detail was the sultry Spymistress, presently represented only by a single alluringly curvaceous line along the bottom of the page. How ought one explain to one's tenth grade general science classmates that doodling the femme fatale in class would have had far more embarrassing consequences than I faced having not done so, particularly when it came time to stand upright and walk to the door in profile when the bell rang?

Professor Adriana Laughton, our young, pretty, totally not partial inspiration for a Spymistress science teacher made one more attempt to rein in the discussion, "Salicylic acid? Chemical formula? Anyone? This is a science class I'm teaching, yes?"

Ana Ortiz, resident honor roll knockout social butterfly overachiever (pretty sure every graduating class in the entire history of public education has at least one) raised her hand. "C7H6O3. Also, Doyle? 1972 called - they want their homophobic slur back."

"Thank you, Ms. Ortiz," said Professor Laughton, "on both counts."

I gave Ana my best impression of a sheepish smile of gratitude. I've had a far more reasonable crush (if just as unlikely to be realized) on her since the eighth grade, and I wouldn't want to ruin our mutual acquaintanceship by attempting to say words. I noted with relief that she hadn't actually looked in my direction, her studies naturally taking precedence.

Doyle's sophomoric attempt at humor having been dashed upon the rocks of actual sophomores, he tossed my notebook back onto my desk, with a muttered "nancy." He earned himself a few low laughs that time, but I think even he was possessed of enough neurons to realize they weren't laughing with him.

At that moment, just before the spotlight could swing back toward the suspect scribblings of mild-mannered comic geek Peter Parker, the end of period bell swooped in and pulled my ass out of the fire. Talk about saved by the… well you get the point.

"I've posted your weekend assignments on Blackboard, and don't forget, next Wednesday is your last day to submit applications for the science fair. Enjoy your weekend, everyone!" Professor Laughton called over the commotion of kids rummaging and milling their way out to the hall.

The professor laid a gentle hand on my arm as I made my way past her desk en route to the door. "Peter, can I speak with you for a moment before you head to your next class, please? I won't keep you long, and I'll send you with a note to excuse your tardiness." She said all this quickly and softly enough that I could tell she was trying to avoid embarrassing me in front of the class, which was nice.

I stayed behind as the rest filed out of the room. My next period was Phys Ed, so it wasn't as if I'd lose sleep if I had to miss a few minutes.

"You're really quite talented, Pete," Said Professor Laughton, her eyes flashing to the notebook I held in the crook of my arm. "But is your chemistry notebook really the best place for storyboarding your graphic novels?"

I looked down at my shoes. Despite science not really being my forte, Professor Laughton was one of my favorite teachers. She had a way of addressing her students not necessarily as equals, but as if they were seeds of infinite potential, and she was determined to coax the very best out of each and every one of us. Even Doyle. She'd noted my passion for comic books on day one, and often adjusted her lessons in a science fiction-friendly way so the content would appeal to me.

"Sorry, Professor. It's just, sometimes my mind just catches on an idea, and, well…" I let out a breath of exasperation tinged with shame.

The professor nodded, and sighed knowingly, "chemical nomenclature will always take a back seat when visionary dreams are In the room."

I finally returned her gaze, and she was smiling.

"You have a magnificent gift, Mr. Parker. So few people know what they want in life, even folks three times your age. Fewer still are doing something that they love and that they're genuinely good at. You've got both already well in hand."

I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment. Somehow the compliment, while wonderful, stung worse than my shame had.

I had a gift alright. I was Peter Parker, the goodest draw-er in all of Joseph Siegel Memorial High School. For all I knew, maybe even the goodest high school age draw-er in Canarsie.

For a moment, I thought of my cousin, Ben. Ben was a science wiz. Less than two years older than me, he'd skipped several grades and was now majoring in biochemistry and genetics at Empire State University on a full merit scholarship. Ben had no interest in making art. But if art had been his passion as it was mine, I know he sure as hell wouldn't have lost his portfolio on the subway. Wouldn't have subsequently missed the application deadline to get into Art & Design High School in Midtown, either.

"Aw, I don't got it _that_ well put together, Professor Laughton." I said bashfully, "but thanks. I promise, from here on out, I'll save my doodling for Geography class, fifth period."

That earned me an amused smile and the eyebrows-half of a disapproving glower, all at the same time.

"That sounds like it could come back to haunt me later,” she said, “but we choose our battles." 

Turning to her desk, Professor Laughton extracted a yellow slip of copy paper and began filling it out.

"I understand by the morning announcements that this Saturday is your birthday, Mr. Parker?"

I nodded and, trying to make myself sound mature and disinterested, sighed my reply like a proper adult. "Fifteen years ago tomorrow."

"Well, I'm not one of those teachers who would accept the anniversary of your birth as an excuse to hand assignments in late. Make sure you find time amid the festivities to get your homework done?" Her tone was stern, but a wry smile touched her lips and the corners of her eyes as she handed me the hall pass.

The _admit this student _____minutes late_ section had been left blank. I could show up for the last three minutes of Phys Ed and Coach Harris could say nothing at all. Being the innate paragon of fitness and aficionado of sportsmanship that I was, this was a birthday gift of the finest vintage.

"Thanks, Professor."

"No need to thank me, Mr. Parker. I would be in violation of school regulations if I held you up after class and didn't supply you with an affidavit of excuse. Now go on - that pass has an expiration date!"

I nodded and smiled soberly in gratitude, shouldered my backpack and slipped into the hall just as the second bell rang. As the hallways emptied around me, I made my way in the opposite direction of the gymnasium, waving my hall pass and hoping my 'hurrying to class' act was convincing.

In all honesty, a blank hall pass was a double edged sword. It meant that I could skip as much of today's Phys Ed class as I wanted, as long as I made it back in time to fill in the blank time slot and deliver it to Coach Harris before class ended. Best case scenario, I'd miss the worst 45 minutes of my least favorite 55 minute part of the day.

On the other hand, if my ninja stealth skills weren't up to snuff (and they weren't), and a member of the faculty stopped me, I was cutting class, aided and abetted by one of their own.

I suppose to have plausible deniability, all Professor Laughton would need to do was say I'd pulled a "hey - what's that over there?!" and grabbed the note while she was distracted. 

Even so, the power contained within this humble half sheet of yellow copy paper was a lofty burden indeed.

'It is my gift,' I thought, 'and it is also my curse.'

_

Thus far, it seemed to be a good day to be a ninja. The halls of Joseph Siegel Memorial High had cleared out. Within maybe three minutes of that second bell, it had become deserted to the point I could hear the echo of footsteps miles before I'd cross paths with anyone. 

'At this rate, it looks like clear sailing.' I thought. Because you're only tempting Murphy's Law if you say it out loud. Sure - that's how it works.

"Come on, Ray - you can't keep me here - I must get to class!"

I froze, just shy of rounding a corner at a bank of lockers. The speaker couldn't have been more than ten feet further along the corridor I'd been about to turn down. I held my breath and tried to steady the thundering of my heartbeat. Whoever it was hadn't been talking to me, and as far as I could tell, they hadn't heard me either. If I was really quiet, I might be able to take a detour and keep it that way.

"Now Ms. Wallace," came a reply that utterly drowned out the voice of reason in me, "my constituents and I may not be within our rights to detain you here without just cause. But, as our cause is certainly just, I should say, yes we can."

Raymond Bleeks was of a height with me, so a few inches clear of five and a half feet on a good day. He was narrow shouldered and he craned his neck forward when he walked, movements like nothing so much as a small ostrich in khaki pants and a sweater vest. He was on high honor roll, led the debate team, active in the model UN, and a senior mathlete, despite being only a junior. He modeled his appearance and manner after President Obama, but his politics, which were on display in his extracurriculars, were of a moderate conservative. And absolutely all of it was a front.

Raymond was a bully. No, I should amend that - not a bully - _the_ bully. In a world of zero tolerance policies and heightened vigilance even on social media, when it came to extorting the weak out of their lunch money, Napoleon Bleeks got the job done.

I'm not big, or strong, or coordinated, and I'm also sort of a loner, so I was really an ideal mark for Ray and his goons, who were varsity football and basketball jocks he recruited in exchange for academic help. I'd kept off his Raydar (I'm sorry - tense situations have been known to cause me to pun uncontrollably) this long only by always migrating at the center of the herd. 

But I'd also never witnessed Ray's methods. Hearing about bullying secondhand and in the past tense is one thing, but being a fly on the wall and pretending there's nothing you can do is quite another. I may not be big, or strong, or coordinated, but I'm stubborn, and I have a chivalrous streak a mile wide. Blame comic books.

As I peered around the corner, I was relieved to observe Ray and his goons facing the opposite direction. His target was a young woman I recognized from my ninth period history class. Sharia Wallace was just shy of six feet tall, and favored an edgy sort of hybrid punk goth/african princess aesthetic; lots of black, accented with gold bracelets and other miscellaneous bangles. Her hair was a mane of platinum white dreadlocks bound up in a high ponytail by a gold cuff. Her dark amber eyes almost seemed to glow with the fury of her glower. Were I Raymond Bleeks, I probably would have chosen a less fearsome target.

"So you're going to stand there and tell me you actually have a good reason to be holding me up, and that whole speech wasn't a bad excuse to rip off President Obama's inaugural victory speech? Poser-ass mutha trubba." Sharia had a distinct, if mild accent of African origin, and her grammar was exquisite and eloquent, which unfortunately made her use of creative self-censorship more amusing than intimidating.

Ray had three… constituents with him, basketball jocks from the look of it. They were spread out along the width of the hall, standing much as they would while playing defense. It looked as if every time Sharia had tried to move past them, they'd feinted and blocked her path; keeping her from progressing without ever having to resort to more invasive bullying tactics.

Ray chuckled lightly. "I'm sure I should be offended. Maybe even intimidated, but business is business, Ms. Wallace. The acquisition of capital is essential in allowing this great nation to function at peak."

"And dry-clean-only sweater vests don't pay for themselves?" Sharia snapped back, attempting another feint and lunge to slip past the middle basketball guard guy.

I've never been keen on sports - sue me that I don't know the positions of a basketball team.

Ray sighed. "You could just pay the toll, Ms. Wallace. Then we could stop playing this game day in and day out."

"And what gives you the impression I would just shell out $3 daily to pass through a hall that everyone else uses freely?"

Ray smiled with a callousness that he usually kept better hidden. I could hear it in his tone, even with his back still turned. "Model UN members need to maintain good standing for attendance, Ms. Wallace. If you got detention for being late to class, I'd have to submit my recommendation that you be removed from your post. Besides - what's a measly $15 a week? I'm sure platinum white hair treatments don't pay for themselves either."

That did it. 

"Well, well, Napoleon Bleeks, the Kingpin of Joseph Siegel Memorial High School. Caught in the act of extorting a fellow student," I stepped around the corner in my best imitation of a confident saunter.

Ray turned, his eyes alight with anger and surprise. 

"You're not supposed to be here…" He said. 

He looked me up and down, cold calculation wrestling with anger for rights to whatever he did next. Then his face abruptly slackened to ambivalence, and I felt a chill run up my spine - it was clear which aspect had won out.

"You're not supposed to be here," he repeated, this time with calm self-assurance. "Parker, isn't it? Somehow I have my doubts you remembered to pack a hidden recording device for such an occasion. You aren't exactly known for being well organized."

He was entirely right. I saw two of his goons turn reflexively to follow this new development. The third was still keeping on Sharia, but there was some small chance of plan B succeeding where plan A had failed.

Okay, so "plan" is a term to be used very loosely in either case, but at least I try to think on my feet.

"Ray, I hope you realize that COEXIST button on your messenger bag is some serious hypocrisy--RUN FOR IT!" This last I shouted for Sharia's benefit, and feinted to the left of the nearest goon with all speed.

And, my left foot somehow managing to trip up my right, head first into a bank of lockers. As I said - not big, or strong, or coordinated. I felt my glasses skitter off down the hall, and my head spun as I found myself crumpling to the floor.

"Ray, man, I don't know what this dude is on, but he crazy!" Came the voice of the nearest lackey.

"Quite probably. And that collision made quite a bit of noise. Probably not the best idea for us to be here when someone comes to check on things." Ray sounded completely taken aback. He also sounded as if he were speaking from ten feet below me, and through a fishbowl. Wierd. "Let's be on our way, gentlemen."

"Definitely more Lex Luthor than Barack…" I tried to mutter as my vision faded out. It came out "defnnn ma leth fulther ppfflack."

Last thing I recognized was a pair of glowing amber gold eyes looking down at me in concern.

Was it just me, or were the pupils vertically slitted, like a cat's?

-

When I started to come to, Sharia had her arm around me, and was helping me to my feet. 

"...care of that myself, and you could have avoided a potential head injury."

"Huh?" I said. My ears were ringing.

Also, did I mention Sharia was really pretty (if your type happens to include fierce-eyed exotic warrior women, and need I reiterate I'm a comic book nerd), and she smelled nice. And my ears were ringing - let's go with that last one.

Sharia abruptly leaned me against the lockers and stared into my eyes from a few inches away.

"Your eyes are responding to light properly, so probably no concussion. We should head to the nurse's office just to be sure."

I must have been imagining the glowing cat eyes after all. They were a mesmerizing hue of gold-amber, but otherwise perfectly human.

In the daze of recent head trauma, it occurred to me how many situations I'd been in today that would make good starting points for "dear penthouse" columns. Asked to stay after class by a hot science teacher, and now rescued by an African goddess, and all before noon. I suppressed an adolescent giggle. Never imagined getting hit over the head would be this entertaining.

"What were you asking before?" I asked as I got my feet moving steadily under me.

"I asked why you thought I needed rescuing. Not that I don't appreciate the gesture, but most of the people I have met around here would think it more sensible to leave well enough alone. And you just dove head first onto Raymond Bleeks radar." She flashed a grin, "literally."

We'd arrived in the waiting area of the nurse's office, and Sharia helped me ease into a chair. I was pretty much ambulatory without assistance at that point, but one could never be too careful after a head injury.

"Ray is the kind of bully who takes the low road because he can predict the outcome," I said, "he's a control freak, and the outcome he expects is the one you just mentioned. It's why he isolates his prey - the only angle by which he could be accused of wrongdoing is hearsay."

I was speaking more from a strange, deeply ingrained intuition than any real experience in the matter, but my reasoning felt exactly right.

"Even as klutzy as my intervention was, I upset his apple cart. And your helping me to the nurse's office knocks him even more off his game. Scavengers like Bleeks never expect human decency."

Sharia smiled. "You are a strange one, Peter Parker. Reckless, and uncoordinated, yet both brave and wise. I like that." She leaned in conspiratorially, "maybe next time though, invest in a helmet?"

I laughed. I was about to ask how she'd known my first name (I remembered Ray had called me only by my last), when the door to the nurse's office opened.

An elderly gentleman with wireframe aviator glasses and a bottlebrush mustache leaned out the door. "You kids alright? The nurse is due back in from lunch in another five minutes. I'm just watching the desk at the moment."

He stepped out. He was taller than me by a bit, though age had slouched him to roughly my height. His hairline was only partially receded, and was still a darker coal grey on top, though the sides had blanched fully to the same wispy white as his mustache. He wore a dark green sweater with the name STAN embroidered in flourishing cursive above the left breast. 

I knew he was one of the part time hall monitors the school rotated through, but for the life of me I couldn't recall ever having seen him in the halls. At the same time, he seemed impossibly familiar. His eyes twinkled.

"Cat got your tongue, kiddo?" I realized I had been staring, mouth half ajar as I tried to place where I'd seen him before.

Sharia reached into her pocket and offered Stan two slips of paper, one pink and one yellow. I recognized the latter as my hall pass, which no doubt explained how she knew my full name.

"We were both rushing to class late, and when I ran around the corner, Mr. Parker here threw himself head first into a locker door rather than run me over. He seemed a little woozy when I helped him up, so I figured we ought to visit the nurse."

Stan inspected the two hall passes, then nodded. "We'd best get him inside then. He can rest in the examination room until the nurse gets back." Stan held the door open for Sharia and I.

Once I was settled, he sat down behind the nurse's desk, and said "it seems like both your hall passes will need some amending. May I?"

We both gave our assent, and after a moment of scratching with a ballpoint pen, he handed the passes back. We thanked him, and I took a moment to inspect mine.

As I had surmised, Sharia had had the foresight to fill out the section Professor Laughton had left blank. It occurred to me she must have also recovered my glasses and put them back on my face, otherwise reading would have been quite impossible. 

Stan had scrawled the word _OVER,_ accompanied by an arrow on the bottom right hand corner of the page. Turning to the other side, the note read as follows:

_Coach Harris,_

_Mr. Parker experienced something of a tumble while rushing to get to class with all speed. I received him at the nurse's office, and would appreciate it if you'd cut the kid a break on this one, if only as a favor to me. He's a good kid, and I'm sure he'll get plenty of exercise this weekend._

_Excelsior!_

_-STAN_

Who signs a jotted note ' _Excelsior!'_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UP NEXT: A Different Perspective on Power and Responsibility


	2. A Different Perspective on Power and Responsibility

**2: A Different Perspective on Power and Responsibility**

The rest of the day was comparatively uneventful, but all in all, a fantastic relaxing Friday to precede a birthday weekend.

Somewhere deep in my unconscious, I was sure some alarm bells were going off. 'things don't go this well for this long without a random piano or anvil dropping from on high to balance the scales,' it warned. I shrugged it off. 'You've read too many comic books.' I told myself.

Even so, I confess I found myself glancing around at upward angles every so often on my walk home. It was unseasonably pleasant weather for late March. Conspicuously unseasonably pleasant.

The Parker residence is a squat yellow brick three bedroom townhouse on the corner of Glenwood and Remsen, twelve blocks straight along Remsen Avenue from Joseph Siegel Memorial High. I hadn't taken the bus since I was old enough to be trusted with my own set of keys.

My parents bought the place in the mid '80's, shortly after they'd gotten married, and although much of Brooklyn had been through overhauls at the whim of first gentrification, then Orthodox religious communitization, and finally hipsterization, the Parker residence had held out, and looked pretty much exactly as it did in their photo albums.

When I got home, I noticed all the lights were off in our flat. 'Mom and Tess must have gone out for something' I told myself, though it did seem odd that all the blinds were closed on the ground floor windows. I let myself in, and as I flipped the light switch, was immediately assaulted by a goblin, cackling madly and hurling sandwich bags full of shred paper confetti. 

My little sister Tess, who was eleven and almost as tall as me took her job as duly deputized housepest very seriously. She leapt at me after volleying the last of her ammunition, and gave me a crushing hug.

"Happy Birthday, Pete!!"

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!" Came a chorus of familiar voices. 

It was mostly my mother's neighborhood friends, a motley crew of local women, the youngest of whom were twenty years my mom's senior. Mom played pinochle with them on Tuesday nights, and I had to go to sleep with earplugs when she did. You'd never expect a group of grandames to be the cause for a neighbor calling the cops at 1am about a raucous party, but as Gladys from two doors down told the officer, "we've all done our time as quiet and dutiful housewives - now we live it up while there's still more than dust in our veins!"

Cousin Ben and Aunt May were there too. May Reilly was the younger, cooler, self-made entrepreneur businesswoman aunt who wore craft jewelry, sometimes smelled like clove cigarettes and patchouli, and swore conversationally when mom and dad were out of the room. Growing up, she and Ben had been over for dinner every Friday night for as long as I could remember.

They'd even invited Mr. Radford, a venerable black gentleman with one good eye and a distinctly southern lack of appreciation for what he called the 'northern uppity pace of things.' Mr. Radford, who hid his rheumy right eye behind a pair of black ray bans even indoors, had taught me to play chess in the park a few summers back.

Dad had come home from work early. He and Mom stood to the back of the crowded entry hall, smiling with a fierce parental pride that thoroughly reinforced my embarrassedness. For once I was grateful I hadn't really made any lasting friends in high school, such as might be invited to a surprise party by my parents.

I made my way over to them, gradually. My progress was much impeded by my sister, who dropped to the floor and wrapped her arms and legs around my right leg, like she used to do when she wasn't almost adult-sized, and insisted I walk with her attached.

"You don't think maybe you're getting a bit too big to hitch a ride, do you, sis?" I said, grunting with the exertion of dragging one shoe which was inexplicably 90 lbs. heavier all of a sudden. It was a true Sis-yphean ordeal.

"Did you like the confetti?" Tess asked, completely ignoring my plight, "I wanted to do glitter, but mom said you'd get mad enough to throw me out a window. I was gonna do glitter anyways, but mom confiscated all my art supplies just in case."

Like I said, my sister takes her job as housepest very seriously.

"This is wonderful," I said when I finally reached my parents, "but what's the occasion? You do know my birthday is tomorrow, right?"

My father nodded, ruffling my hair with the awkward, stern affection of his generation. "Growing up, I can remember fifteen was a really big year for me, and your mother too. What you asked to do for your birthday was so… small,"

"And mature," mom cut in, approvingly, "but since it's just going to be your father with you at the museum tomorrow, we decided to put a little something together to celebrate tonight. After all, a child's birthday is really a celebration of a mother's ability to not murder her offspring in their sleep."

That would be my mother's sense of humor. In hindsight, probably also a contributing factor to my few childhood friendships outside of school not carrying over into my later years. But my mom is much too awesome (and terrifying) for me to hold a grudge.

It was a very nice night. There was cake, candles to be blown out and singing, all of which I did my best to bear with the dignity of the soon-to-be fifteen.

I got a whole booster pack's worth of birthday cards with $5 bills in them from mom's pinochle crew. 

Of all the things I did not expect, Mr. Radford had gotten me a space themed chessboard set featuring hand-painted pewter pieces for the original star wars trilogy and Star Trek the Original Series. 

"Between the two of us," he said conspiratorially, "I think the trilogy wins hands down on firepower alone, but 'Trek was just so much more well thought out."

It was a splendid gift. I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd take Firefly over 'Wars or 'Trek any day.

Tess had constructed me a wallet out of blue, black and red duct tape. She could barely restrain her enthusiasm as she gave me the tour of her craftsmanship. It had a clear plastic viewing window for my eventual drivers license, and she swelled with pride as I transferred the meager contents of my old wallet into this new one.

A canvas messenger bag with a certificate indicating it was hand woven by the Quechua people of Peru came from Aunt May. 

Ben, whose only claim to artistry was a hobbyist's appreciation for the craft of photojournalism, got me a small, high quality DSLR camera with wide angle, zoom and night capture functions that put the best cell phone camera on the market in its place many times over.

"For art reference photography." He'd explained, almost apologetically. I'm pretty sure he had no idea how awesome his gift really was.

Mom got me an unabridged annotated translation of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Philosophical literature was kind of her thing - over the years I'd gotten birthday gifts of Cervantes' Don Quixote, Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Dante's Divine Comedy and Camus' The Stranger. Some of it made sense, some of it confused the hell out of me, most of it I was still chewing through slowly but steadily. Absolutely all of it made me think, which I figured must be Mom's goal, overall. 

She really seemed to have a thing for the Russian classics though. I had a whole shelf's worth of Chekov, Nabokov, Tolstoy and company, and I was considering finding a display case for them and labeling it 'in case of existential crisis, break glass'.

Dad insisted he'd give me his gift tomorrow, and that seemed to be the signal to wrap up the festivities. I was grateful - it had been a long, eventful day, and I knew I'd be too excited to sleep in tomorrow morning, so early turn in was a mission priority.

Everyone said their goodbyes, and the remainder of the evening drifted by on autopilot. I started to realize just how tired I was by around 8pm, and I hit the pillow half an hour later, grateful I'd remembered to set my alarm for tomorrow ahead of schedule.

_

My alarm roused me in the twilit gray-blue dimness of predawn. I fumbled on the bedside table for my glasses, then flipped the light switch and lay squinting and blinking at the ceiling until my eyes adjusted. 

So this was what being fifteen felt like. A lot like fourteen did yesterday, if I'm being honest. I climbed out of bed and walked to the full length mirror on my closet door. 

A scrawny nerd from Brooklyn stared back at me through hazel eyes obscured behind the careworn frames of thick-lensed prescription glasses. His dark brown hair stuck out at odd angles from bedhead, and he smoothed it down with a quick self-conscious motion of his adolescently oversized hand. He struck a heroic pose, and you could see his ribcage and shoulder blades, but a definitive lack of abs.

I sighed, and reminded myself not to abandon hope, that I still had a few good years of puberty left. Then I turned to the framed first edition issue of Excelsior! Comics #1 that hung on the wall to my right, featuring the never before unveiled origin of the original Super Soldier, Captain America. 

The cover showed a before and after depiction of young Steve Rogers. In the upper left half of the page, Rogers, a scrawny blonde youth with physique very much resembling my own, is fastened down on an examination table, a comely nurse administering an injection of glowing serum to his inner forearm. Rogers is smiling through gritted teeth. 

The lower left panel is a nearly identical scene, though the restraints on the exam table have been ripped apart by the force of the now olympian young man's rippling physique. He's gained about a foot in height, and apparently the serum also endowed him with a superhumanly square jaw. The comely nurse now stands back, swooning, a delicate hand to her mouth, a thought bubble above her head reading "oh, my!" with hearts floating around the text.

Big bubble letters along the bottom of the page read "The ASTOUNDING Secrets of **PROJECT REBIRTH!** "

'And, if puberty fails me, there's always Abraham Erskine's top secret super soldier formula.' I thought with a sigh.

I know I've already said I'm a comic book geek, but when it comes to the 1978-89 run of Excelsior! Comics, featuring the spectacular feats and deeds of derring do of the Star Spangled Super Soldier himself, Captain America, I'm kind of a superfan.

Why Cap? Because he's real. Because Project Rebirth actually happened. Though I'm sure a lot of details have been redacted and then sensationalized by the artistic stylings of writer penciller duo Phil Coulson and Tim Dugan, there is ample historical evidence to support the notion that a physically frail 95 pound kid from Brooklyn underwent a miraculous procedure that allowed his physical presence to reflect the paragon of humanity he was on the inside.

Today, our world has no shortage of villainy. We've got crazy dictators like Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un of North Korea and Grande Philosopher Viktor Von Doom of Latveria (hell, the way things are going, there's a frighteningly real possibility Donald Trump might be the next President of the United States). Terrorist extremist groups like Al-Queda, ISIS and the Ten Rings are just as difficult to flush out as they ever were. Corruption, hate and fear are very real facts of life. 

Why then, are there so few heroes?

Sure, Tony Stark declared himself the Invincible Iron Man a few years ago, but he really only dedicated himself to cleaning up messes caused when his own tech fell into the wrong hands. And then a freak repulsor accident two miles above Seattle two years back saw Stark Technologies stocks plummet very nearly to rock bottom. The company eventually managed to bounce back, which unfortunately cannot be said of the late, not-quite-invincible Iron Man.

Steve Rogers was a real life superhero. Under great pains, he accepted a mantle of incredible power, and wielded it to do the right thing. He did so because he believed that was what the world needed, and even laid down his life in the end to see it done.

A lot of people see comics as a pleasant escapism, like Star Trek or Lord of the Rings. Not saying I'm not a fan of escapist stories, but an appreciation of fantasy is not what has driven me to collect all 237 issues of Captain America, to say nothing of the 1996 12 issue limited series depicting Cap's time traveling excursion to the early 1980's.

I see superhero comics as road maps to a brighter future, and to me, Cap is undeniable proof that anything is possible.

Which is why today was sure to be awesome.

I went to the bathroom, showered, brushed my teeth, and dressed in jeans and a faded blue oxford buttondown - untucked and top button undone - just because I'm a nerd doesn't mean my mother dresses me funny.

My morning routine complete, I sat down next to my dad at the kitchen table. He acknowledged me with a grim, professional nod and sipped his coffee. I nodded back and started working on the bacon and eggs Mom had prepared.

Dad and I understood each other - today was _the mission_ \- no time for pleasantries.

We left just a few minutes after sunrise, maintained our grim set professionalism as we boarded the L train to Manhattan. Dad provided me with a pair of reflective aviator sunglasses to match his own when we emerged into the early morning sunlight at 8th avenue and 14th street, and we hopped a midtown bus the rest of the way.

The USS Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum loomed gray and imposing, in marvelous contrast to the waters of the Hudson behind it, which glittered with the myriad reflections of the sun as it climbed towards its zenith.

An all too familiar typeset of bubble letters punctuated our destination: 

**PROJECT REBIRTH!**

An all new addition to the Captain America Exhibit, finally unveiling the astonishing secrets of the 1941 Super Soldier Experiment!

-Coming soon to the Star Spangled Patriot Memorial Amphitheatre on Pier 46-

The exhibit was slated to open this July, but they'd announced a special early viewing weekend in March for VIPs. Dad had been a consultant for a certain government intelligence agency during the Cold War (naturally he wouldn't say which agency, but I had my suspicions), so I begged him to pull some strings to get us a pair of tickets. Now, here we were.

The dome of the abysmally named (in my humble opinion) Star Spangled Patriot Memorial Amphitheatre had originally been erected as part of an exhibition at the 1955 Stark Expo. It had been dismantled in 1977, left in storage for almost two decades, and then purchased by Clarion Dawn publications (the publishers of Excelsior! Comics), restored and donated to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in the early '90's. It finally opened to the public under its current, oh, so very endearing moniker in 2004, part of a major publicity push to keep the historic preservation funds from drying up.

From the outside, the amphitheatre was a low circular dome constructed of a framework of triangular glass panels with a pentagonal pane as the centerpiece, perhaps three stories high at its apex. It was built to resemble the Captain's legendary discus-target, with the steel framework surrounding each pane of glass painted red or white or blue where said colors would be on the actual shield. The ratio of height to circumference seemed a near accurate representation as well, (though I'm sure I could be wrong there - I'm a fanboy, dammit, not a mathematician) and as a result, the dome took up nearly the full width of the pier at that end.

So as not to interfere with the accuracy of the shield replica facade, the entry into the amphitheatre was a wide stepped stairway recessed into the surface of the pier, which emerged from under the lip of the dome like a world of tomorrow subway entrance.

Immediately within the dome was a walkway which ran the width of the hall twice around in a spiral, with exhibits running a timeline along the outer wall along the way. Steve Rogers' humble beginnings, his repeated attempts to enlist, meeting Dr. Erskine, Project REBIRTH, selling war bonds, reuniting with Bucky, forming the Howling Commandos, and so on. 

Eventually, the spiral concluded with Cap's pursuit of HYDRA leader Johann Schmidt, otherwise known as the Red Skull, and piloting Schmidt's plane to disappear amid the frozen waves of the Arctic Ocean. 

History didn't formally acknowledge the story of a man claiming to be Steve Rogers who suddenly appeared during a covert rescue mission at the height of the Cold War, and disappeared just as mysteriously after.

Beyond the timeline, the path gave way to five sections of tiered seating, accessible via five stepped walkways corresponding to the points of the star on the shield.

And at the center of it all, five sets of heavy dark blue theatrical curtains, installed exclusively for the special exhibit, concealed the pentagonal center stage.

Dad and I had visited the museum many times over the years, but something in the air of mystery given off by those obscuring curtains made my stomach do excited somersaults with each step I took.

We got to midway along the top rung of the spiral, and I paused before a mannequin display behind reflective glass. A small, faceless model dressed to resemble Rogers pre-serum stood in front of a second one of the better recognized heroic proportions, dressed in the garish star spangled costume he'd worn to sell war bonds. 

The lighting of the display was designed to reflect only the viewer's face, so a person of the right height could look at themselves as Captain America. I was just the right height to see myself wearing the smaller mannequin's outfit, holding up a metal trash can lid to mirror the way the larger model held the shield.

Dad had about four inches of height on me, so his eyes were peering out from the vicinity of the Star Spangled Man With A Plan's collarbone.

"Do you think they'll ever try again?" I asked.

Dad shrugged. "I doubt it," he replied.

Rumor had it that Erskine kept a journal which details the process for making his formula, but he left out all the details of a critical catalyst needed to successfully recreate the process. Even with the journal, chances were that any hope of continuing the project disappeared under the waves with Rogers and Schmidt.

Dad checked his watch. "Ten minutes to curtain. We should go find seats."

I nodded, but hesitated, staring at the composite reflected scrawny kid from Brooklyn. "Well, if they ever do figure out the formula again, I want in. The world needs more heroes, with the strength to stand up for what's right, no matter the cost."

I turned to follow dad down the spiral walk, but dad had stopped moving. He stood there for a long minute, facing away from me, heel of his lead foot poised just touching the ground in mid-step. From behind, I saw his shoulders sort of tense up, then he turned, and strode stiffly towards the railing at the inner edge of the walkway. 

He leaned heavily on it, gazing intently at nothing in particular in the direction of the stage below us. I walked up next to him, slowly, unsure what was going on. He had a melancholy look in his eyes that was… unsettling.

"...Dad?" I asked, not really knowing how else to respond.

"I want to tell you a story, Pete," he said, and his voice was grim.

"No - I don't want to tell it to you. Especially not today. In a perfect world, you'd stay safe and young and never have to learn this lesson, but this isn't a perfect world, and I worry if I don't tell you now... I've seen where that path leads one too many times already."

Dad drew in a long, deep breath. He held it longer, and exhaled it longer still. Then, his eyes never moving from that vague spot in the middle distance, he began.

"Your Uncle, my younger brother Ben joined the Army Corps of engineers immediately after high school. He saw two tours of duty during the Gulf War, and earned a commendation for valorous conduct, a purple heart for being wounded in the line of duty, and finally an honorable discharge after an antitank round exploded nearby and nearly tore his leg off.

"Ben had a mantra that he lived by: With great power, there must come great responsibility. I think he must have read and paraphrased it from a biography of Winston Churchill. Wherever he got it, it became his Code of Chivalry and his Ten Commandments.

"Ben was sure that so long as there was a fight somewhere to make the world a safer place for the people he loved, it was his divine charge to be doing the fighting.

"Then, on September 11th, 2001, Ben dragged me along to the diamond district to shop for an engagement ring for his longtime sweetheart, May Reilly. They'd been an item more frequently than not since high school, and May was capable of being every bit as stubborn and determined as Ben.

"They made a beautiful couple. They made each other happy. May had given birth to your cousin two years earlier, and she'd given my brother the added incentive: little Ben would be Ben Reilly until she had a ring on her finger. It was all lighthearted. The future was bright, and my brother the hard headed idealist was finally giving thought to the notion of settling down.

"I remember being so happy for him, and maybe even more grateful than I was happy, because it meant he was finally choosing to put his warrior days behind him.

"He'd just paid for the ring when we heard the commotion. Two hijacked passenger planes had hit the towers of the World Trade Center."

Dad's tone took a bitter turn then. 

"Pete, you were too young to remember life before the 'war on terror.' You've been raised in a world on which terrorism has already left an indelible stain of fear. Changing our outlook as a society; making suspicion and conspiracy integral in our first impressions of anything and everything.

"That day, my younger brother handed me the ring box for safe keeping. 'I'll meet you back home,' he told me, and I knew there was no talking Ben Parker out of doing the right thing.

"I watched on the news that evening as trust, altruism, human decency and all the best In human nature vanished under a wall of blinding smoke and dust and rubble. And my brother, with his great power and his great responsibility and his whole life ahead of him vanished too.

"May never got her ring - she wouldn't accept it from me when I'd offered it after the grief had faded enough to do so. And Ben Reilly never became Ben Parker Jr. 

"Sometimes noble sacrifice is just a ready excuse for the shirking of an even greater responsibility: to live for the ones you'd die to protect."

Dad's voice trembled as he neared the end of his story. I didn't know what to say. I wasn't even sure I understood why he'd told me all this now.

We stood together in solemn silence. Dad checked his watch again.

"You know," he said, "there's a chance we'll have a better view from up here."

I nodded. "And elbow room to spare. I don't mind if you don't,"

He smiled, finally, and we leaned over the railing to watch the stage.

After a minute or so, the panels of the dome began to darken to opacity, making the amphitheatre grow gradually dimmer and more theatrical, The curtains began to draw up and away along an invisible wire scaffold like something out of Cirque du Soleil, accompanied by a rising swell of orchestral strings and clarion brass. There were three sets - first blue, then white beneath that, then crimson.

As the last layer of curtain drew away, we beheld a perfect replica of the procedural room where Steve Rogers became Captain America.

There wasn't any examination table adorned with leather restraints. Instead, something between an iron lung breathing apparatus and a scifi spin on the medieval iron maiden torture chamber sat in the center of the room. The thing was all chrome, with a bulkhead viewing window like that of a deep sea diver's helmet, and several segmented plates hinged open at its front. A length of electrical conduit wider around than my waist connected the chamber to a panel of switches straight out of the USS Enterprise transporter room. Lights flickered dramatically and the music approached crescendo. 

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN," came a genial female announcer voice.

Quite suddenly, the music stopped, the lights went out completely, and were promptly replaced by red-tinged emergency lighting. 

Center stage stood a tall, gaunt man with a glowing violet monocle and a long gray trench coat. His features were muted ominously by the red chiaroscuro lighting

'The production value is even better than I had imagined,' I thought excitedly.

And then the man drew a pistol, aimed straight up and shattered the center panel of the dome above him with three quick, deafening bursts of automatic fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UP NEXT: Requiem for an Ideal


	3. Requiem for an Ideal

**3: Requiem for an Ideal**

There were sudden screams of panic, and several patrons in the seats below leapt to their feet and whirled to head for the emergency exits. Others stayed seated, either out of having the good sense not to run from a man who just shot holes in the ceiling with a baretta for dramatic effect, or because they thought this was all still part of the show.

My father had a hand cuffed around the biceps of my right arm, and his grip was rivetingly firm, though not painful. A subtle pressure of his knee against the backs of mine suggested we lower ourselves slowly to take cover below the chest-high guard railing.

"Ladies and gentlemen," The man's voice boomed out cold and dispassionate over the theater's speaker system. 

He had a distinct evil german scientist accent - it came out sounding like ' _ledisun chandlemenn'._

"I must ask that you please refrain from proceeding to the emergency exits in any fashion, orderly or otherwise - I have posted armed guards at each point of igress, and it would be both tedious and inconvenient to have to resort to bloodshed so early in the morning."

I found myself having to repress an insane giggle. _Unt do ju heff match experience in shetting blot before noon?_

"My name," continued the substitute Bond villain, "Is Wolfgang von Strucker, and I am here for what I suspect is a reason kindred to your own.

"To unearth the secrets of the good doctor's _Übermenschen_ formula."

At those last two words, I recalled a scene from Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, where the heavily accented Inspector Kemp addresses the village council, and the whole room calls back "whaaat?" in chorus. I started shaking with silent laughter and Dad clamped his free hand over my mouth.

"Now, my sources tell me that while the delightful reenactment stage behind me is almost entirely a work of fiction meant to thrill and entertain, the authentic journal of Doctor Abraham Erskine is hidden in a vault on premises.

"To access such a vault, I require the security credentials of a member of SHIELD personnel with Alpha protocol clearance authority. And, considering this vault is part of a long term installation, it is safe to assume at least one such SHIELD operative is present.

"This delightful little gadget over my right eye is a facial/retinal scanner. It is synced to a personnel roster database that was acquired from SHIELD central command in Washington DC less than four hours ago. If I must, I will briefly interview each and every individual until my scan matches someone with the proper credentials.

"In the interest of time, every scan that comes up negative under that circumstance will be deemed a necessary casualty of this operation. To you who I seek, it is my sincere hope that you take me on my word at this and strongly consider cooperating. I find bloodshed somewhat distasteful when there is a more convenient alternative."

I made an attempt to swivel my eyes around the room to the nearest emergency exits. They were indeed well guarded. Two heavily armed goons in black ski masks were posted at each of the three exits that I could see.

Despite being utterly helpless in this situation, I couldn't help but notice in a bizarre, top down view sort of way that I was not reacting to this life threatening situation with anything like a sane level of fear.

More than anything, I was a little annoyed that Dad's hand on my mouth was keeping me from raining down a torrent of deadly sarcasm at the bad guy. I definitely read too many comic books.

Dad squeezed my arm once, and turned my head to face him with the hand covering my mouth. 

"Stay here. Don't argue. Don't make a sound." His tone and the look in his eyes brooked absolutely no argument. My dad wasn't exactly the most jovial fellow, but I'd never seen him look so serious, so… in command.

His hands released me and smoothly transitioned to raising skyward, as my Dad rose with a slow and dignified grace. I wanted to protest, but his eyes were still locked on mine.

"Baron Wolfgang von Strucker," he said, in a tone I'd never heard him use. 

The stern, certain, commanding tone carried easily through the amphitheatre.

"I am retired SHIELD operative and acting intelligence consultant Richard Laurence Parker, active security protocol levels Alpha and Gamma.

"I regret to inform you, Herr Baron, that SHIELD never negotiates with terrorists, especially where matters of Alpha level security are concerned.

"But I am retired, and I am very familiar with the sort of man you are, Baron. You don't leave witnesses alive when, to use your own phrasing, there is a more convenient alternative."

I dared to peek over the railing. Von Strucker was staring very keenly at my dad, his gun lowered only slightly to angle the ground in front of him, his finger still braced on the trigger. Did this dude see _my dad_ as a threat?

Von Strucker's visible eye narrowed. "Parker… I know you, but by a different name."

My father nodded. "Madripoor, 1992. I was a member of a small group of SHIELD covert ops specialists, sent to infiltrate a Hydra base led by none other than your father, Wilhelm Von Strucker."

"My father and his Madripoor stronghold met with an unfortunate end. Your doing?"

Dad nodded.

Von Strucker threw back his head and barked a laugh. "Then I should thank you. Your actions were one of only a few factors that allowed me to assume my dear departed father's legacy."

His voice went from mirth to guttural harshness so rapidly it made me flinch. "But do not think such a happy coincidence has earned you your escape this day, Agent Parker."

Dad, who had been gradually approaching along the spiral walkway with his hands still raised in surrender, reached the top teir of the amphitheatre seating and began to descend to the foot of the stage. 

"As I said, I'm retired. I'm here with my son," he gestured with a jerk of his head to my location. "But my Alpha and Omega credentials are still active.

"From where I stand, I see four plain clothes SHIELD operatives. Two of them have Alpha clearance, and they'd both kill themselves and everyone else here sooner than cooperate with Hydra. The rest are innocent bystanders.

"SHIELD HQ has definitely been alerted by now. I estimate you have fifteen minutes at most to find out what you need to know, acquire the journal and commence evac before you're up to your ears in shock troopers."

"Somehow, you don't sound as if you are making threats, Mr. Parker."

"I'm doing what SHIELD won't. I'm negotiating. Let them go. Every last one. No victims, no casualties, no _inconvenient_ bloodshed whatsoever. In exchange, I'll give you what you want and then some."

Von Strucker cocked an eyebrow. "You have my attention."

"My son is here in the audience," Dad continued. "In exchange for seeing him and every other innocent walk out of this unharmed, you get me. I will betray my country, my ideals, all of it. Every bit of knowledge I have will be at your disposal."

What? I shot up and found myself racing down the spiral walk before I could think better of it. "Dad, no!" I shouted.

I suddenly felt very small. Like in the recurring nightmare I had as a young kid. I'd be running down a hallway towards an open door at the far end, reaching out to my dad, who stood in the threshold. The hallway would keep getting longer; the door stretching further and further away. And then, every time, the door would swing shut with a bang, and I'd wake up.

I wasn't dreaming this time though.

I didn't see the man in the back row of seats as more than a blur, as he swept up and hauled me back. The man held me firm, but he wasn't trying to harm me. 'One of the four plain clothes SHIELD operatives,' I thought idly.

"You can't, Dad - you can't! We're the good guys!" I was getting hysterical, flailing. I seemed to hear and see myself from very far away.

Dad gave me a long look, "I love you, Pete." He said, then turned back to Von Strucker. "Do we have a deal?"

The Bad Guy nodded. "Odd that I should be so quick to trust the word of a self-affirmed double agent, but I can recognize the word of a man with everything to lose when I hear it."

"Phil," my dad said, looking deliberately away from me, "Get my son out of here."

"Let's go, kid." Came the sad, gentle voice of the man holding me back.

I wanted to fight him. I wanted to kick and bite and struggle and drag my feet. But something in the set of Dad's shoulders as he kept his eyes firmly away overrode that part of me. The part that wanted to break free of Phil, rescue my Dad and run away, calling Von Strucker's monocle funny looking over my shoulder as we fled; that part thought of my Dad's eyes as he said "I love you, Pete.", and kept silent.

The next few minutes were a whirlwind of confusion. Phil guided me to the nearest emergency exit and out a stairwell to the side of the dome facing the USS Intrepid. Hovering above the aircraft carrier's flight deck was what I can only describe as a slightly slimmer, sleeker, _flying_ aircraft carrier.

As we emerged, a liferaft-sized hovering platform detached itself from the flying carrier's side and gracefully drifted down to land on the pier in front of us with a whisper of rotors disengaging.

Only then did I realize that the roar of whatever technologies kept the airship aloft, while not absolutely deafening, so much saturated the air that it drowned out any sounds of inferior distinction.

On the platform that had landed, surrounded by a team of armed-to-the-teeth spec ops commandos, was a tall bald African American man in a black leather trenchcoat and no obvious body armor. He wore an eyepatch over his right eye, and was armed with only a standard service revolver, holstered in a shoulder harness. The look in his good eye gave me the immediate impression that this man was at least as dangerous as all the men surrounding him combined.

And I _knew_ him.

Straight out of the pages of Excelsior! Comics, this man could only be Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD.

"Director," I heard Phil shout over the roaring, "this is--"

"I know. Get aboard, Agent - we've got less than thirty seconds."

Phil instantly complied. The agent my Dad had trusted to help me evacuate never left my side, though in the commotion and what with him mostly standing behind me with a firm hand secured to my shoulder, I never got a good look at him. 

The platform started to rise almost as soon as we were on board.

When we had risen maybe 15 feet over the pier, the roaring whisper of rotors was abruptly overwhelmed by a sharp whining groan of steel struts being bent and glass cracking under pressure.

I turned to face the Star Spangled Patriot Memorial Amphitheatre, and had to shield my eyes, as every panel of glass exploded outwards simultaneously. A flash of white flame that left a blue green afterimage on my retinas from even the brief instant I'd looked directly at it swept out from where the dome had once been.

"Director Fury!" the voice of a cold, cruelly gloating evil Nazi scientist reverberated as if from a loudspeaker from above the inferno.

A black stealth aircraft that could have fit in the upper antechamber of the dome dissolved into view from complete invisibility. The rear docking bay was open, and Wolfgang Von Strucker stood inside, smiling down at us.

In one hand, he held aloft a small leatherbound journal, deeply worn and stained yellow with the years. With his other, he held a gun to the back of my father's head.

"I am surprised and, I confess, so pleased you deemed it prudent to make a personal appearance. It's such a rare privilege to see you getting your hands dirty these days.

"I think I should like to express my respect and gratitude by returning to you this expended resource," he aligned the barrel of the gun with the base of my father's skull. "For proper disposal."

Fury's voice was a low rumble that even in the height of fearing for my Dad, brought to mind the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the immolation of Pompeii. "You pull that trigger, Von Strucker, and I swear to you that I will erase you. A Hydra bunker on Mars won't be secure enough to hide you from me."

Von Strucker's murderous grin only widened. "The days of Hydra crouching in shadows are at an end, Director. No longer will we cower as you decapitate us silently one after another. Hydra has evolved.

"Now, we are Jörmungandr, the serpent whose coils constrict the entire world! The monster whose bite is the bane of gods! And with this," he waved the journal about, his lips frothing in the triumphant madness of his words, "the great Death's Head of the leviathan will emerge from the depths, and we will at long last bring this world to heel!"

He pulled the trigger. 

The world went dim and sounds faded and warped to echoes down a long hallway, as my father's lifeless body tumbled into the former amphitheatre's inferno.

_

I don't really remember the ride home. I don't think we took the helicarrier. I don't think we took the L train either, but I don't remember. Don't remember the look on my Mom's face when Phil told her what happened. I know it was Phil that broke the news, but I still have no solid recollection of what he looked like. I don't remember how Tess reacted to finding out our dad was not alive anymore…

It's a strange and agonizing event, the first time you lose someone. It changes you. Tears a piece away that leaves a hole, and now you have this hole. The gap never really mends - it just becomes your new normal.

I hadn't cried. I felt numb. When I got home, I walked to my bedroom, sat down on my bed, and stared at two brown paper packages sitting on my pillow - the birthday gifts dad had planned to give me when we got home, I guessed. The larger package was labeled "open first".

My mind didn't seem capable of rendering a complete idea. The only conscious thought that seemed to want to make the circuit was 'damn, you know, this is exactly how a lot of Superhero origin stories start.'

I opened the package with a hazy delicacy I was pretty sure I wouldn't normally possess; carefully undoing each piece of scotch tape and avoiding tearing the corners. Beneath the paper was a framed, matted piece of artwork, altogether about the size of a school textbook.

The art, drawn in pencil on a battered sheet of notebook paper, was faded and yellowed with age and showed creases where it had been folded repeatedly to pocket size.

The sketch was of a comic book superhero. A lithe, acrobatic youth, arms spread wide, one gripping a thin ropeline. His knees were drawn up as if he had just leapt, and now was soaring through the air towards the viewer. His full face mask, upper body and knee high boots were covered in hatchmarked lines that resembled spider webbing, and there was a spider emblem in the center of his chest. Web lines spread out beneath his underarms, and his biceps and legs to the knee were shaded out in solid black. At the lower corner of the page, just above the matting, the artist had signed his work:

_S. ROGERS_

_10-24-1933_

Astounded, I turned the frame over in my hands. There was a rectangular glass window installed at the back of the frame, revealing a portion of the other side of the notebook paper hidden behind the matting from the front. In small, neat capital letters in what looked like same hand that had signed the other side (although judging by the boldness of the line, far more recently) a note of dedication read:

_QUEENS,_

_15 IS A BIG YEAR, BUT IT'S THE LEAST OF MANY TO COME. I KNOW YOU PROBABLY DON'T THINK IT RIGHT NOW, BUT YOU'VE GOT A REMARKABLE JOURNEY AHEAD OF YOU._

_I DREW THIS WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. THOUGHT IT UP IN A DREAM - THE AMAZING HUMAN SPIDER!_

_SURE, I LAUGHED AT MYSELF AT THE TIME. I HELD ONTO THE DRAWING THOUGH. WHO WOULD'VE GUESSED MY OUTFIT WOULD LOOK EVEN MORE OUTRAGEOUS?_

_I'LL WISH YOU LUCK, BUT YOU'RE SURE TO MAKE YOUR OWN._

_BEST WISHES,_

_-STEVE [BROOKLYN]_

I sat stunned for I don't know how long. Where had my father gotten this? Try as I might, I still couldn't form a complete thought. I turned to the other package. It was small. An envelope no bigger than a sheet of copy paper folded in half. I opened it. Inside was a handwritten letter several pages in length. It was from my father.

_Pete,_

_Yes, it would seem you and Captain Rogers have more in common than Brooklyn and a passion for the philosophical ramifications of doing the right thing. I bet he didn't appreciate being the goodest draw-er in his high school either._

_It's a long story, and damn near impossible to believe if you hadn't been there yourself, but I hope you can take it on faith when I tell you: Captain America was a close friend of mine, and a mentor and role model to me the same way, and at the same time in my life that you are experiencing even as you read this._

_I can't explain everything - a lot of this I really shouldn't be revealing at all, but I want to give you a piece of wisdom, and it wouldn't be fair to you on your birthday if I withheld from you the secret of its source._

_I met Steve Rogers during what was the most tumultuous chaos of my life story. I was working as an intelligence operative at fifteen years old, and lying about it. I wanted to make a difference, and so had thrown myself head first down the rabbit hole and damn the consequences, and ironically, found myself deeply conflicted, questioning the very nature of who I was and why._

_And here was this seemingly eternal rock of ideological absoluteness: Captain America, paragon of all that was good and true in human nature; a living legend._

_So I asked him (and I'm quoting from memory from when I was fifteen, so bear with me - this might get a little melodramatic):_

_‘When it seems like the whole world is against you… when the weight of your actions and responsibilities is bearing down on you like a ten ton weight… when sometimes you're not even sure you know your own heart anymore, how do you cope? How does the man who serves the nation handle it, when the nation deviates from everything it's supposed to stand for?’_

_\--I'd considered the question for half a day before I'd actually asked. You see, I wanted to be sure I framed it in a way that would apply to the Captain, but not reveal the lie at the source of my doubts. Even idealists are immature at 15.--_

_Cap thought about it for a long moment, and when he spoke, I braced myself to commit his words to memory as best I could, and wrote it down as soon as I was able. This is what he said:_

_‘You know, I can remember the first time I really understood what it means to be an American… what it is to be a patriot._

_I was a little younger than you are now, maybe twelve or thirteen. Seems like a million years ago sometimes. Maybe in a way, it was._

_I was reading Mark Twain, and he wrote something that struck me right down to my core… something so powerful, so incontrovertibly true that it changed my life. I made myself memorize it, and I repeat it to myself in silent moments across the years, so I can never forget._

_He wrote:_

_'In a Republic, who is "the Country?"_

_Is it the government, which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the government is merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not to originate them._

_Who, then, is "the Country?" Is it the newspaper? Is it the pulpit? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command. They are but one in the thousand; it is in the thousand that command is lodged; they must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn't._

_Who are the thousand--that is to say, who are "the Country"?_

_In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians._

_Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man._

_To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may._

_If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country--hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.'_

_\--that much of what Cap said I was able to refresh in my memory by tracking down the original Twain text. Apparently one of Cap's lesser known gifts is having a memory like a steel trap.--_

_Cap stood silent for a long moment, and then he smiled gently, almost sadly. What he said next reverberates in me still. So much so that I get choked up with emotion when I try to quote him aloud. He said:_

_‘It doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right._

_This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences._

_When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world:_

_"No, you move."’_

_It was the most profound wisdom I've ever had to digest, and at fifteen years old, it was almost a decade before I understood it fully._

_Now you're turning fifteen, and at the risk of rehashing wisdom rehashed already by Captain America and written by Mark Twain, the crown prince of rehashed wisdom himself, I'm going to add my own version to the pile._

_(You're fifteen now, and one of the things you'll need to learn as you reach adulthood is how to respectfully endure the lengthy philosophical waxings of the old and senile):_

_Don't just do the right thing because it's what's right. Do the right thing because it's what's right for you. Do what you love. Embrace your passions, and fight for the things that bring you happiness. Be what is right for you, and you'll be the hero of your own story even without a top-secret experimental serum and an indestructible shield._

_Happy Birthday, Peter._

_Love Always,_

_-Dad_

My vision started getting blurry as I neared those last three words.

'My Dad wrote this…' I thought.

And after what seemed like a numb, dry eternity, the tears fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UP NEXT: Rearranging the Pieces that Remain


	4. Rearranging the Pieces that Remain

**4: Rearranging the Pieces that Remain**

Dad's funeral was the following Friday. I don't really remember it. On my birthday, I'd fallen asleep crying probably around the time we'd normally be sitting down for dinner as a family, and the numbness was with me again when I woke up the next morning. Once I was numb again, I don't really remember much for a while.

SHIELD had arranged a cover story that placed my dad's tragic and thoroughly accidental death as far in people's minds from the freak detonation of a thought-to-have-been disarmed torpedo that destroyed an exhibit at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. There had been some first degree burns and historic property damage, but thankfully no-one was seriously harmed.

I started going back to school on Wednesday. Mom said I didn't have to, but some part of me must have thought the return to normal routine would help, so I went anyway. It didn't help, really. At least not in any way I recognized. 

I remember hearing "I'm sorry for your loss," a lot, and a few "my condolences" and some "we'll keep your family in our prayers". 

Oh, and I very nearly decked Raymond Bleeks.

He and his goons approached me in the lunchroom while I stared at my untouched tray. Wednesday is taco day.

"I'm truly sorry to hear about your loss, Parker," Ray said.

He probably laced it with some sarcasm, but I was too numb to notice.

"Pity your resiliency towards head trauma isn't an inherited trait." Okay, I noticed the sneer with that one.

The cover story was that my Dad, a civil engineer working as a building inspector for the city had been struck on the head by falling debris during a routine site survey of a condemned warehouse.

I don't know when exactly I'd gotten to my feet and stepped away from the lunch table, but I could be sure that, barring divine intervention or royal reprieve, my clenched fist had an afternoon appointment with Bleeks' nose.

I know I don't have the best track record for coordination or physical grace, but as I made sure to step within point blank range, I figured aim wasn't going to matter much.

Before I could ready my elbow to wind up for the punch, I felt a gentle, but unyielding pressure on my wrist. I looked to my right.

Sharia Wallace was at my side, and her molten amber eyes were glowering down at Ray Bleeks with a force of intimidation that could give Nick Fury a run for his money.

"Oh, Raymond. You were just leaving." Her tone somehow flawlessly combined 'fancy meeting you here' with 'do you want to walk away, or be carried off in a body bag?'

Ray didn't hold Sharia's gaze. He met her eyes, blinked, looked away, swallowed, went several shades paler and looked abruptly as if he might be ill.

"...condolences." He mumbled in a very small, shaky voice, and made himself scarce with remarkable efficiency.

I looked over at Sharia. She was staring off in the direction Bleeks had fled the way a matron lioness marks a trespassing hyena that has managed to escape her wrath, for now.

"Thanks," I said, in a quiet monotone. 

Numbness placed communication very low on my systems priority list, it seemed.

Sharia didn't answer. Instead, she started walking briskly towards the cafeteria exit. It was only when I felt the sharp tug of my arm follow her that I realized I would be accompanying her whether I wanted to or not.

We moved at a vital walking pace - the kind of speed you use when what you really want to do is break into a run. We headed for a stairwell at the far side of the building. When we entered the stairwell, Sharia actually did start running, dashing up the stairs at breakneck speeds, and it was all I could do to gasp for breath and keep my feet under me as she dragged me behind her.

From the ground floor we dashed around three times, then burst through the roof access door left propped to bypass the fire alarms for faculty smoke breaks. Sharia slowed to a gentle stop and let my wrist go. I propped my hands on my knees and bent low, fighting to get my stampeding heartbeat under control.

"That… was…" I gasped, "...hinteresting?"

She gave me a lopsided smirk. "Was it?"

And I realized that it was. It was interesting, and exhilarating and my lungs wanted to jump out of my chest and strangle me, and I was… grateful.

For a moment, the numbness, and even the pain it shielded me from were banished from my system. I stood on the roof and felt the noontime sunshine soak into me as the crisp breeze of standing on a rooftop in springtime buffeted my clothes.

"Thanks," I said again, but clearer.

Sharia nodded. "The numbness lasts a while. It helps in a way against the heartache, but it's a different sort of unpleasant." 

She wasn't looking at me as she continued. Her eyes looked out to the western horizon, and were vague; lost in memory.

"numbness, and then sometimes you cry, and sometimes you wish you could find the tears. And you… feel. Happy memories grab you and make you want to cry out of nowhere. Sometimes confusion, helplessness, fear. Anger, for some. The numbness goes away over time, and the urge to cry all the time fades a little while after that. The sadness though? The pain? Never leaves - not fully."

"You lost someone." I said. She understood too well what I was feeling to need to frame it as a question.

She nodded. "My father too. I was almost thirteen. 

"My mother is from here, and my father held a very important job in the government back home," she paused, gathering the story, it seemed like.

"What, like the Prime Minister of - sorry I don't think you told me where you're from," I said,

She smiled, and her eye twinkled with a hint of mischief that made my stomach do a pleasant little somersault. "I didn't. But yes, something like that.

"mum wanted my big brother and I to get an American education, so we'd travel back and forth during the school year. We were here when we got the news, and had to rush back home.

"My brother… he took it the hardest. He blamed himself for some reason I think, and it led him to be the angry sort of grieving. He... doesn't leave home anymore." 

She sounded very sad and very far away when she said that. "He was the same age we are now."

Sharia turned to look at me then. "You remind me of him, Peter Parker,"

'Not sure how I should feel about that,' I thought, a little nonsensically - I mean I knew she was way out of my league, but I dunno - I felt like there was maybe some chemistry, and hopefully not the cringy sibling kind.

"T'ch-- Charles -my brother- was brave and stubborn and reckless and wise, like you,"

Oh - so she admired me the same way ideologically-speaking. Well that was okay then.

"But the anger tore into him, and the brightness in his eyes went… gray.

"I brought you up here because I like you, Peter Parker, and I think you should know that the numbness does fade.

"I wanted you to know what to be wary of when it does."

_

The funeral was on Friday. I don't really remember it much. Did I already say that?

Funeral maybe isn't the right word. Memorial service maybe?

No - it was too informal for that either. No officiation, no body to inter or ashes to be thrown. Well, there were ashes… I forced my mind to detour around the image of Dad's descent into the flames of the ruined amphitheatre. The numbness helped with that.

We held a very informal get-together in the family home, and it lasted all day. There was food, and people brought more. We sat, and talked, and cried, and laughed, and remembered. Mostly we floundered in confusion, but everyone seemed to either understand or be floundering right along with us. I guess that's what memorials and funerals are for: we were those who remained; those not gone, all together with the same new person-sized hole in our lives.

Mr. Radford stopped by to pay his respects. 

"How you holdin' up, son?" He squeezed my shoulder, and I looked up from my shoes.

He was scrutinizing me with a deep, sad soul gazing sort of look, his Ray Bans perched low on his nose so he could see me clearly in the subdued lighting that is typical of houses in mourning. His blinded right eye was a curious thing. The socket around it was scarred by what looked like a very old burn, and the upper and lower lids were thin and recessed so far into the shadow of the eye itself that the milky opalescent orb looked like it might pop out and roll away if he twitched his cheek too quickly.

And for all of that, it was somehow his dead right eye, not his sighted left that gave the impression he saw me.

"He's not getting enough to eat!" Lamented Ida, one of mom's pinochle crew and self-appointed kitchen matron for the day, "look at him, I tell you, skin and bones and nothing else - tell him to eat something, Langston." 

"Now, miss Ida, the boy has at least half a brain to spare between those ears. He'll eat when he's good an' ready."

I let the sound of an old jewish bubbie arguing with a black colonel sanders over my metabolic wellbeing fade into the background with everything else.

I wondered when the anger would come. I felt sure I'd feel it soon. No matter what the cover story insisted, my Dad's death hadn't been accidental. 

His life had been taken. Murdered right in front of my eyes, and I knew who did it. 

What was more, I wasn't the only witness to my father's execution, and could think of at least one particular person present at the time who had vowed to avenge him.

Nick Fury, Director of Shield.

That suddenly hit home. 

And then, I started to _think._

It wasn't like on the school roof, where sudden exertion and the warmth of a good and genuine connection with another caring human being shocked me pleasantly awake. This was more like someone had taken my brain out of the freezer and run cold water over it to help it thaw.

Something about the look in Fury's eye… What had it been?

It occurred to me I might be able to double check. No-one from SHIELD had showed up at the memorial - cover story plus high alert about the whole Jörmungandr thing, I guessed - but there was a stack of photo albums in Dad's home office that mom had been using to put together a memory collage.

One of the albums had the SHIELD emblem embossed on its spine.

Hurrying my body along when my brain was still reviving itself like a limb that has fallen asleep was a minor ordeal, but I made it to my dad's study and managed to not leave a mess in looking for the photo album.

It didn't take long. The first photo on the first page was a grainy group photo, probably dating back to the early 80s, based on the hairstyles. There were five people in the photo, standing at the foot of what looked like a wooden roller coaster - coney island was a safe bet. Two of the photo's subjects I recognized instantly as my parents, although they couldn't have been much older than I was at the time.

Dad looked more or less exactly like me, though with his darker brown hair arranged in an appropriately voluminous cut for the era and no glasses. 

My mom was laughing at something Dad said. She was radiant, her flamebright red hair flowing in waves to her shoulders, chin tilted up and her gray blue eyes narrowed, nostrils flared and lips parted in a hearty, guileless laugh.

Next to dad stood a man that before my birthday I wouldn't have been as certain could only be Steve Rogers. Tall, blonde, dressed in formal military attire with his cap in the crook of one elbow. He wads smiling, and his posture spoke of the easy grace of an expert martial artist who does not need to flaunt his whole self being a weapon. The look in his eyes was pining, as if for some far away dream or memory.

On Cap's other side stood a kid maybe a little older than my mom and dad. He had dark hair shorn in a crewcut, and he was smiling so hard you could almost see the aura of hero worship emanating from him. He seemed familiar, but I couldn't entirely place him.

The last of the photo's subjects looked like he must have preferred to be anywhere else but in a photo. He stood to the back and far to one corner of the image, details slightly blurred as if the camera snapped him just as he moved to escape the frame. I could see his eye clearly enough though.

Nick Fury looked exactly the same when this photo was taken as he did threatening Wolfgang Von Strucker on Pier 46 less than a week ago. 

And that eye… why did that cyclopean keenness seem so familiar? Like he was looking at a subject with that fierce left eye, but seeing straight through it with the one behind the patch?

And just like that, I knew. 

It would seem Nick Fury and I were more than mere recent acquaintances.

_

The next morning was Saturday again. April 4th. I had been fifteen for a full week.

 _You've had a murdered father for a full week._ My inner Hamlet, Prince of Denmark corrected.

I dressed and left the house a little after nine that morning, and walked the eight blocks to Canarsie Park.

Langston Radford (and how the hell had I never wondered at that name?) sat as I'd often seen him on Saturday mornings in fair weather, with a collapsible card table and one more vacant folding chair besides his own. He had a chessboard attached to a lazy susan, so that in the event an opponent didn't emerge, he would have no trouble playing against himself.

"Helps keep the skills sharp." He'd explained.

How had I missed the parallels? The obvious symbolism - it was as if he hadn't really been trying.

Mr. Radford tugged at the brim of his old newsboy cap in salutations, and continued arranging his pieces on the board.

"Young Mr. Parker - just in time for a game." He said with the usual slow southern charm.

"No, Director Fury," I replied, "No more games."

_

Fury didn't reply. He didn't freeze, or falter. He finished setting his pieces on the board and then pushed the empty chair back from the table with a foot.

"You sure about that, son?"

It was honestly a little unsettling, hearing Fury's low rumbling voice come through from the mouth of old Mr. Radford. Moreso because he continued using Radford's choice of phrasing.

"I think maybe this is one last game you ought to sit for."

I frowned, but took the offered seat, and looked over the board. This was not a new game to which I'd been invited. It was a game very much in progress. Several different pieces were lined up to each side of the board. It looked as if black had been winning until very recently.

The white king was castled, although the adjacent rook had been taken in a sacrifice play. White still had most of its pawns, both bishops and a remaining rook, but both knights taken. Black had kept both rooks, both knights and one bishop, but lost many more pawns. Both sides still had their queen, but black seemed to be stuck reacting to consecutive check attempts.

"White's move," said Fury, and a bishop swept in and took the knight which had been countering check.

"Mate in two," He predicted, "unless…?"

I understood. It was symbolic. The black knight who had been taken was my dad. The state of the board showed just how dire things were. I tried to place the symbolism of the other pieces.

For both sides, the king represented the objective; every strategy required the king to remain intact. Von Strucker, the white bishop had just created a major opening for the white queen, who something told me represented the "Death's Head of the Leviathan" Von Strucker had been raving about, to swoop in and take the black king within two turns. On the other hand, the black queen, who by virtue of its versatility and ready mobility must be Fury himself, had relatively few moves within two turns that could alter the condition of the board, and all that I could see were sacrifice plays.

There wasn't anything… and then I saw it. A lone black pawn was poised to take the enemy home row in one turn. It was staged perfectly to evolve into any piece that was needed, and from there was in a prime location to assault the white king.

I moved the pawn. "Queen," I said, taking the fallen black bishop from the side of the board and stacking the pawn onto its head. "Check."

"Taught you well," Fury said.

I pointed to the newly upgraded pawn. "Project Rebirth?"

I probably didn't need to phrase it as a question, but Nick Fury wasn't exactly known for his forthrightness.

Fury nodded, grimly. "We had DNA samples Rogers left when he reappeared in '87, and advances in spectrographic analysis techniques allowed us to unearth the formula's missing catalyst just after the turn of the century.

"The major pitfall that kept us from reinstating the program was the fear of choosing the wrong candidate and making another monster like Johann Schmidt or that _thing_ from the Reinstein Gamma trials in 1962. Probably didn't help matters that the one viable candidate we were considering turned _us_ down.

"Now though, it seems Hydra --sorry-- Jörmungandr has forced our hand."

I figured my best bet was to go for the direct approach. "I want in." I said.

Fury made a sound somewhere between a splutter-harrumph and a snorting laugh, "Not a chance, kid."

"What-- why?" As if I didn't already know. "Before you say it's cause I'm not old enough to make my own decisions, just bear in mind I was old enough to watch a crazy nazi in a monocle murder my father in cold blood."

"Well, that would be half the reason. The other half is that your mother is one of the few people I know who could succeed in blindsiding and assassinating my sorry ass, and the last thing I want to do is add to her already ample motivations."

"...wait…what?"

Fury shook his head "You can look three moves ahead to your own possible options, but you miss vital details all around when you only stare straight ahead.

"In April of 1987, your father, a fifteen year old hobbyist cryptographer, infatuated with such heroes of the silver screen as James Bond, Indiana Jones and Matthew Broderick's naive teenage hacker character in WarGames, managed to completely bypass what were at the time the foremost information security measures in existence. But Richard hadn't just hacked SHIELD - that would have been too easy. Richard hacked a dual encrypted secure SHIELD server that Hydra was using to ferry out state secrets, completely without our knowledge.

"At the exact same time, a sixteen year old soviet covert asset named Anastacia Romanova walked through the front doors of SHIELD HQ, and made it all the way to my predecessor's office _undetected._ She knocked, entered and said in perfect, unaccented american English, 'hello, Director Carter? My name is Anastacia. I am a soviet spy trained in the Red Room, and I'd very much like to defect.'"

Fury paused for a moment, took the Ray Bans off, put them on the table, leaned back and closed his good eye. A faint smile of fond remembrance almost graced Radford's falsely careworn features.

"Peggy Carter was no stranger to crazy situations like that, so she took the kid hacker on his word that he was of legal age to enlist, took the kid soviet spy, rechristened her Mary Fitzpatrick, and assigned them both to me," his vague near-smile abruptly slipped into his more familiar scowl "as their babysitter."

"So, my _mom_ is…" this part was somehow far more difficult to wrap my head around than dad successfully using a fake ID to enlist with an international intelligence organization.

"Mary Parker is the only operative to ever successfully defect from the soviet superhuman conditioning program known as the Red Room. 

"The Red Room conducts a 'graduation ceremony' for its new operatives that alters them both mentally and physically to guarantee absolute loyalty. Your mother escaped on the eve of her graduation, and brought along critical intel that enabled SHIELD to bring down the Red Room once and for all.

"Your mother is a human lie detector test with a memory like a steel trap and the field proficiency of an expert assassin. And she's your mother."

I could feel my shoulders slumping in defeat as Fury hammered each point home. 

"Oh, I… I think I understand." Dad was dead, and Fury knew better than to risk life and limb asking mom when dad had already said no. "Thank you for being so… direct with me… Director."

I was too shellshocked even to recognize the glorious wordplay I had just inflicted. I turned to leave.

"I'll just…" wait.

There was something here I wasn't seeing. Something right in front of me; the culmination of all the things I'd learned and suffered in the past week. It wasn't a chess game anymore: it was a puzzle, and all I had to do was rearrange the pieces.

Nick Fury didn't just dress up as an old man and play chess in the park on Saturdays in good weather because he liked to play chess. Nick Fury was the director of SHIELD. Fury was here because he knew (or guessed, but my bets were on knew) I'd come looking for him.

He'd taught me chess strategy. Don't just see your victory several moves ahead - look at your opponent's objectives too.

Think, Parker!

It wasn't a sudden click of intuition; it was a slow agony of review. I traced my steps back through all the details. The funeral, Sharia's advice on the school roof, the confrontation with Von Strucker, the story about my uncle… 

That was it.

"...The candidate who turned you down," I began, speaking methodically, expressing the thoughts only as fast and far as I could process them, "It was my dad. Ben Parker died, and dad stopped wanting to be a hero."

Fury scrutinized the chessboard as if trying to decide his next move, and said nothing.

"My dad made a choice to leave SHIELD behind, and you chose to respect that choice. He chose to trade one of the most highly prized and closely guarded secrets SHIELD has for my life, and you've chosen to honor that decision too,"

I thought about what Fury was doing here. Tried to see it through his eye. What he wanted was irrelevant. What my dad had wanted for me equally so. 

Fury was here out of respect for the legacy of a man who had valued the life of a fifteen year old comic nerd more than a secret that apparently had the potential to end the world, if Von Strucker was to be believed. Albeit, in this case the nerd was the man's child, but given the stakes, a veteran SHIELD operative wouldn't risk the fate of the entire world to save one person who would die anyway if the world ended.

Dad had died to put the power in my hands.

"I want a shot," I said.

Fury's good left eye flashed up to meet mine, one false bushy gray eyebrow arched. Still, he said nothing.

"When Steve Rogers arrived at Camp Lehigh, the only thing he had going for him was the word of one man who believed in what he might become. Dr. Erskine vouched for him, because the serum alone could not render a man greater than men. It required a man willing to bear the weight of a mantle more profound than any mortal should."

Fury grinned. "Damn Phil Coulson and his penchant for flowery exposition."

I shrugged. "About that - who are Phil Coulson and Tim Dugan, really?"

"Two numbskulls who pitched the idea that turning classified mission reports into comic books would be a great way to keep Hydra from gleaning anything important from the info. Classic misdirection. It worked like a charm, and made me famous enough I have to put on this getup every time I want to go out to buy a quart of milk." 

Ah. Von Strucker's snipe about the rarity of his making public appearances made sense now.

He held up an age spotted and wrinkled hand. "Do you have any idea how long it takes to get into and out of old age makeup? Dumbass comic book loving muthaf--"

Skidding tires and blaring car horns at a near miss on the street nearby provided perfect censorship.

"So you want a shot, huh kid?"

Fury began packing the chessboard away into a little red wagon Mr. Radford used to transport his accoutrements to and from the park.

"If Mary Parker finds out, I've signed my death warrant. But, I owe your father at least that much."

He put the black Ray Bans on and folded up the table. The chairs came next, neatly stacked into the wagon and secured overtop with a bungy cord.

"You'll get your shot, Mr. Parker. Until then, try to keep a low profile." He picked up Mr. Radford's collapsible walking cane, and the old man started away, the wagon making comical squealing noises as it rolled along behind him.

"We'll be in touch."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UP NEXT: An Idiot's Guide to Attempting to Fool a Human Lie Detector Test  
> [Coming Saturday, May 23;  
> expect one chapter biweekly on Saturdays from then on]


	5. An Idiot's Guide to Attempting to Fool a Human Lie Detector Test

**5: An Idiot's Guide to Attempting to Fool a Human Lie Detector Test**

I waited for my shot, and I kept a low profile. 

Mom never asked where I'd gone that Saturday morning. It was a safe bet that grief was interfering just as much with her mental clarity as it was mine. 

When I walked back in the house, she was standing in the living room, a terrycloth rag in one hand and a can of furniture polish in the other. Her auburn hair was done up in a French plait, although a few strands had come free and swept about the contour of her cheek as she buffed the coffee table with furious (but distinctly not reckless) abandon. She wore mom jeans and one of my dad’s old flannel shirts, the sleeves cuffed up almost to her elbows. 

I looked at her, and she looked at me. She nodded, gently. I nodded back. We inched our way around the gravitational pull of each other’s coping mechanisms; I went up to my room, she went back to her cleaning.

I tried to imagine my mother as an international super spy assassin. It was not all that difficult, actually. My guess, either she took it on face value that I was trying morning walks to clear my head, or she was preoccupied plotting an exquisitely painful end of her own for Wolfgang Von Strucker. Probably both.

I went to school on Monday, and the numbness wasn’t as all-encompassing. Most people gave me a wide berth. Sharia was not most people. She didn’t say much the first few days, just kept constantly nearby when we shared a class or free period; a gentle presence. It helped. On Wednesday, she cracked a joke. I don’t remember what it was she’d said, but I felt myself smiling for the first time in what felt like a thousand years.

Sharia was a marvelously interesting companion. She had a sharp wit and a wonderfully sardonic perspective on the worlds of high school and popular culture alike. Now that my brain had thawed to conversational levels, she was a welcome presence in what could previously not have been called my social life.

She knew a lot about science. Like a lot. Enough that my test scores in Professor Laughton’s class improved simply because we hung out during study hall. Her particular pleasures were physics, general biology and geology, though I’m sure she could have held totally alien discourses with my cousin Ben about chemistry if they ever met. 

It explained why she wasn’t in Professor Laughton’s class, which seemed to have been directed at students with limited aptitude in the subject. And Ana Ortiz, who I got the impression was as good at the sciences as all her other subjects, but took Professor Laughton’s class to have one course she could feel truly superior in. Don’t knock it - when you’re in all honors classes otherwise, a little ego boost goes a long way, I assume.

When Sharia talked science, I _liked_ to listen. Okay, so pretty girl with a good sense of humor and a cute accent _and_ she wants to hang out with *me*, sure, but it was more than that. Her eyes flashed when she talked about science. How gravity and kinetic energy were forces that modern theoreticians loved to ponder, but that they had shied almost completely away from harnessing practically. Sharia's theory was that they feared to meddle because they just hadn't yet asked the right questions to truly define what those forces really were. 

Or she might start with how certain plants in harsh and volatile climates could form adaptations that could be classified as evolutionary advancements - a single organism doing in its own lifetime what it took most species millions of generations of lifetimes. 

She made the structure of mathematical mumbo jumbo and the variables of energy constants in blanderflast's theorem of ornithoptery sound _fascinating._ Okay, so sounding fascinating alone wasn't enough to bypass my short attention span, but at least it sounded fascinating _enough_ that I opened the textbook once in a while so I could keep up.

She got very mysterious around the topic of her native country. African accents aren’t exactly a breeze to pinpoint, and she seemed to enjoy frustrating my curiosity. I’d occasionally drop a fishing question about a certain plant or weather pattern with more regional than continental origin, stumblingly trying to triangulate where she was from. The best I usually got was something in the vein of "well yes, and also no," and that twinkling-eyed mischievous smirk.

Then she’d turn it back on me. “How goes your work on Spymistress Alaethia?”

I’d roll my eyes and flip open my Geography notebook. Spymistress Alaethia stood on a rooftop made of half-drawn perspective lines, one hand on her hip, the other aiming a grappling gun into the distance. Her eyes were half-obscured by the billowing of her dark hair, and the stretch vinyl jumpsuit and devilish smirk left only enough to the imagination to keep it PG-13.

“Has the Spymistress always been biracial?” she asked, an amused accusation in her tone suggesting she knew the answer but enjoyed making me squirm.

I felt myself blush. Admittedly, Alaethia’s ethnic origin had become somewhat less caucasian. Her lips were fuller, her nose a softer contour, and the roundness of her cheekbones was a dead giveaway that I’d borrowed from life. 

“So sue me, I draw inspiration from what’s around me!” I said, snapping the notebook shut with my best sarcastic smile and eye roll to camouflage my embarrassment. 

Rather I tried to snap the notebook shut. Sharia’s hand was in the way. 

“Her waist is impossible!” she laughed, “No-one with a chest that large can stand upright with a waist that small. For that matter, mister draws-inspiration-from-life, who do you know has a chest that large?”

Sharia’s laugh was the contagious kind.

_

I waited for my shot, and I kept a low profile.

I’d waited almost two months, and my low profile was beginning to chafe.

April had come and gone, and May was in its waning phase. The evenings were starting to take on the lazy humidity of early summer. 

I had not heard from Director Fury. They had not been in touch.

It was halfway through May, my father's murderer was anywhere in the world, doing who knows what but obviously nothing good with the assistance of Abraham Erskine's journal. And here I was, pushing mashed potatoes back and forth across my lunch tray with a spork. 

_Keeping a low profile._ What the hell did that even mean?

"...art classes next year, or are you continuing your independent study protest of the school's lackluster humanities funding?"

"Huh?" I asked. I got the distinct impression Sharia had been trying to ask me something, but my thoughts were… elsewhere.

Had Fury only said they'd be in touch to placate me? That didn't make sense… if that was it, why would he have been waiting in the park?

Maybe even the director of SHIELD gets to have a hobby.

"I asked if you were taking any art electives next year," said Sharia. 

"Hm? Oh - nah. Not saying I've learned it all, but I know more than this school's art curriculum could offer if I got held back three times and took art class for six years running."

"Parker," Sharia said.

I looked up at her, and noticed for the first time a depth of concern in her eyes. I remembered what she told me on the roof about her brother.

"Sorry - I'm a little distracted lately," 

By way of explanation, I'd just said a whole lot of absolutely nothing, and I felt terrible about it. Here was my one friend in the entire world, and I was deliberately keeping secrets. 

I looked away, but I could feel Sharia's eyes boring into me for a long moment thereafter. 

She reached across the table, placed a hand over mine, and squeezed. "We all have our secrets, Parker,"

I dared to meet her gaze again. The concern in her expression was tempered by a grim resoluteness I couldn't place. She _understood._ I felt sure that was it. 

Which of course made me want to spill the whole story. Tell her everything. Which was ridiculous. And a very comforting idea - being able to confide in a friend.

_Sure - tell her a supervillain murdered your father and now you're expecting a call back from a legendary superspy who agreed to *maybe* let you in on the top secret revenge mission. That is, if by some chance you pass the supersoldier candidate test and survive being injected with 80 year old gene splicing treatments. Boy, it sure was comforting - to have been able to confide in a friend._

My inner Hamlet prince of Denmark had sure developed a penchant for snarkiness these past few weeks.

That twinkle of mischief appeared in Sharia's eyes again, "what about a trade, eh, Parker? One secret for another,"

She didn't wait for my answer. She got up from the lunch table, and headed for the cafeteria exit. She paused for a moment at the door, half turned and looked at me over her shoulder, a hand on her hip. There was something that might best be described as catlike in that posture; a regal -if a little snobbish- benevolence.

'I'm not going to drag you this time,' said the look, 'so you'd best keep up.'

I got up, threw away my uneaten lunch without regret (Thursday is Thanksgiving Anytime day), and moved to follow her.

_

The rooftop of Joseph Siegel Memorial High School at noon on a day in late spring is a vastly different environment than that same rooftop a month and a half earlier. As we stepped out through the roof access door, we were assaulted by an ambient heat so intense that, gasping for breath as I was after our stairwell dash, my airway closed up in protest. I had to stumble blindly back into the sheltering cool of the stairwell before I could reorient myself to breathing. 

If I'm looking at the whole thing practically, the extra time gasping like a fish out of water was actually to my advantage in a weird way. Enough so that I kept at it maybe half a minute longer than I actually physically felt the need to.

Since my chess game with Director Fury, I'd been doing everything I could think of to prepare myself for the trials I might face as a candidate for Erskine's formula. I'd been waking up at 6am and getting in as many pushups and situps as I could manage before starting my morning routine (so more than ten, but usually less than twenty five. Don't laugh - we've all gotta start somewhere). Then I'd set out for school half an hour before I needed to, wearing my best grim-acceptance-of-the-new-normal expression, just in case anyone was watching.

Mom would be getting Tess ready for school, and she'd smile and tell me have a good day, and not to overdo it. She also supplied my lunch for a while, but I let her know I should start getting into the habit of prepping my own lunch - what with being fifteen and all. That made her frown, but she seemed to understand. 

This was all practice in what was by far the more trying skill to refine: keeping a secret not by lying, which would most certainly fail, but by acting as if I had absolutely nothing to hide.

I was getting pretty good at it, actually, as far as I could tell. I credit my success to years of studying the masters of that sacred craft: the mild-mannered men behind the masks in the pages of Excelsior! Comics. As a collector and someday producer of tales of superheroism, creating airtight fiction that ran parallel to the truth was part of my daily grind long before I had to adapt it for my own life story.

All I had to do was compose a narrative for why I was changing my routines that made enough sense that even I'd believe it was the truth if I didn't know better.

It was surprisingly easy once I got started. While I'm not sure that's a good thing in terms of my ethical integrity, mom finding out my real motive for getting in shape and being more independent was just not an alternative.

Which brings me back to why I was glad for the extra half minute of gasping for breath in the stairwell: my story for not revealing the truth was airtight, but until we started for the stairs, I hadn't given any thought at all to how crazy the truth sounded if I ever did have to tell anyone.

It would've been great if I'd been able to think on the headlong dash upstairs too, but being in better shape apparently didn't cure my lack of coordination. At the pace we were going, most of my brain power was dedicated to keeping me from tripping and slamming my shins on the next stair, and my face into Sharia's shapely calves, and in keeping that train of hypotheticals from wandering higher than calves.

"You're stalling, Parker." Said Sharia.

Okay, so my improv acting still could use some work.

"My dad's death..." I began, then paused, trying to keep my thoughts a few sentences ahead.

"This is gonna sound crazy," I warned. 

Sharia shrugged. "If it was something you could say easily, you wouldn't be keeping it a secret."

I sighed, and continued. "My dad's death was no accident. He was murdered. I was there when it happened. The story about falling debris at a work site--"

"Put in place to insure your family's safety." Sharia interjected. "I believe you. You didn't lose your father - he was taken from you. I know… I could _see_ it about you."

And somehow, I felt I could see it as much about her. My story wasn't all that farfetched to someone who had been through the same.

I decided to tell her the rest, as much as I dared without putting her at risk.

"I met with one of my dad's… coworkers, afterwards. I got him to promise he'd keep me in the loop if they found anything. He said he'd be in touch."

Sharia shook her head grimly. "And it's been over a month, with no reply? Punk ass mutha trubba."

I couldn't help but smile. I sank back against the wall of the stairwell landing. I didn't realize how much of a strain I'd put myself under - it's so much bigger a deal than putting on glasses and changing your hair, so nobody knows you're clark kent _and_ superman.

Sharia sank down next to me. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me, mr junior superspy."

I grinned. "I wouldn't have told you if I thought otherwise. But you forget," I did my best Anthony Hopkins impression, "Quid pro quo. I tell you a secret, you tell me a secret. Quid pro quo, Sharice"

"That is so creepy," she laughed. Did I mention she shared my appreciation for classic cinema? "You even did the face!"

I didn't reply, just did my Hannibal Lecter wide eyes staring smile and waited.

"Alright! Alright - crazy white boy! Want to give me nightmares," she cringed away, still laughing.

I settled my expression to something more tolerably sane, and Sharia sat up and stopped flailing in mock terror. 

"Alright, a secret for a secret," Sharia said, cupping her chin with one hand and tapping her cheek with her index finger, as if deciding which first edition issue of Excelsior! to drop her allowance on.

Okay, so I don't actually know if that was Sharia's reason, but that's why I would make that expression.

"Okay," she said. "My birth name isn't Sharia. I took the name Sharia to fit in better here in the States.

"My real name is Shuri."

I waited expectantly. Sharia - rather Shuri, didn't say anything else. She held her hand out in a palm up gesture. 'Well, there ya go.'

I got it then. I'd told her the truth, just not all of it. She'd omitted more or less comparably.

I let out a sigh, "Okay then. Well, probably should come up with a nickname for you that avoids confusion. How does 'Ri' sound?"

Ri flashed a smile. "I like it," then the smile flickered a little, and her brows furrowed thoughtfully. "I hope you don't want me to start calling you 'Ter' then?" 

I flinched a little myself at that. 'Ter'? "No, Parker is fine. At least until a more suitable epithet reveals itself."

We sat there a moment longer in silence, just enjoying the company. We had our secrets. It was nice to know we each had someone we could trust to keep them.

_

"You've got mail, Pete!" my mom called from the kitchen as I let myself in.

Mail? That was… unconventional. To my knowledge very few fifteen year olds born this century expect to be receiving post, except on birthdays and similarly special occasions.

Which might just make it the perfect cover for a top secret SHIELD communique.

I tried to keep the tremor of anticipation from my voice as I called back.

"Really? Where? I wasn't expecting any packages."

"Coffee table!" Came the reply. 

Whatever mom was cooking smelled delicious, but I was too preoccupied keeping myself from taking the fastest route to the coffee table -which was to say diving headfirst over the back of the couch- to try and guess the dinner menu.

It was one of those large manilla packing envelopes. Addressed to me in handwriting so neatly generic it might have been comic sans typeset. There was a return address from an office suite in Manhattan, but the name of the sender was not listed.

I fought to keep my hands from shaking as I opened the envelope and slid its contents onto the coffee table. 

Inside was a typed letter on familiar stationary, a sealed regular white envelope also addressed to me from another office in Bayshore Long Island, and a leaflet several pages thick with a business card paperclipped to it.

My shoulders sank as recognition dawned.

This was not the perfect cover for a top secret SHIELD communique. It was a formal apology for a long overdue response to a story idea I'd submitted to Excelsior! Comics more than a year ago.

_Dear Mr. Parker,_

_First off, I want to take this opportunity to thank you personally for the time and effort you put in to crafting this_ **_spectacular_ ** _narrative. You are truly a remarkably gifted young writer and artist, and your passion is exemplary._

 _Unfortunately at the present time,_ **_Excelsior!_ ** _is not accepting freelance story submissions._

_I am delighted, however, to say that I gave you the bad news first._

_I was so deeply impressed with the quality of your work, and when you mentioned your age in your accompanying cover letter, I saw a golden opportunity for you. In the tradition of so many of our heroes, I just couldn't resist a little meddling._

_I submitted your work to our_ ** _Excelsior!_** **_Young Writers and Artists Summer Seminar Sweepstakes_** _, and I'm very pleased to inform you that your work was one of only ten selected out of thousands of submissions to win a full scholarship to attend all three sessions of our summer seminar program in Fredonia, NY._

_Enclosed is a brochure for the program and a business card for Ms. Maria Hill, the assistant director, and the VIP in charge of making arrangements with the winning applicants._

_The summer is approaching us with_ **_astounding_ ** _swiftness, so please contact Ms. Hill as soon as possible to secure your spot._

 _I'm certain we can expect many_ **_amazing_ ** _things from you, Mr. Parker._

_Supernatant!_

_Les Stanford,_

_Founder, Excelsior! Publications_

'Supernatant'?

I picked up the business card, and fished my cell phone out of my back pocket. Well, a summer seminar for writers and artists hosted by my favorite comic book label wasn't exactly supersoldier training bootcamp, but at least I'd have something to do for the summer. I dialed the number, and waited.

"Whatcha get?" Mom asked from right behind me.

I almost dropped the still ringing phone in surprise. Yeah, I could totally believe she'd been a super spy assassin. Her stealth skills hadn't gotten rusty since either.

"Excelsior! Comics enrolled that story I submitted last year into some kind of summer sweepstakes, and I won." I tried my best to sound more flat out surprised than disappointed.

"That's awesome, kiddo!" Mom said.

She took a seat in a lounge chair at the adjacent corner of the coffee table, and picked up the seminar brochure.

"This looks great. Camp Heligh, in Fredonia - that's way upstate, just south of Buffalo, I think. And you won a trip the whole summer?"

At that exact instant, two things happened simultaneously.

One: I turned the business card over, and read a small note written in all caps in small, tidy penmanship on the back. Accompanied by an arrow pointing to the side I'd just turned from, it read "THIS IS YOUR SHOT."

Two: the phone picked up, and an unmistakable smooth, rumbling baritone said "Mr. Parker - I did tell you we'd be in touch."

I almost dropped the phone again.

Okay, maybe a formal apology for a long overdue response and a congratulatory acceptance letter to a summer seminar _was_ the perfect cover for a top secret SHIELD communique.

I fumbled in my brain for words. My practice in stall tactics was paying off. "Yes, this is Peter Parker - um, I'm sorry, but could you repeat that last bit please? The reception cut out a little there."

"I take it your mother is with you in the room?" Nick Fury asked.

"Why yes, actually - my mom is right here next to me," I took the brochure from where my mom had set it back on the table and made a show of leafing through. "Is there a form you need me to have her sign or something?"

"Put me on speaker."

"What? Oh - I'm sorry - the line is really static-y - could you maybe repeat that one more time?"

"Now I know you're not sitting there gawking like an idiot when your mother is looking right at you. Put. The damn phone. On speaker."

"Oh - yes, that's much clearer. Sure. Uh huh - just a sec, please." I shut my eyes involuntarily and fought the urge to grimace, as I hit the speakerphone button.

A bubbly, lilting and clearly feminine voice that might have belonged to a real estate agent or a receptionist who never ever has a case of the Mondays, and that was distinctly not the voice of Nick Fury said "Hi, Mrs. Parker?"

I put the phone down on the coffee table before the rush of relief succeeded where terror and surprise had failed to make me drop it.

"Hello, yes, this is Mary Parker," my mom said in that almost-shouting way that some people have when talking on speaker.

"Hi Mrs. Parker, this is Maria Hill. I'm the assistant director for the Excelsior! Summer Seminar program. I'm sure I'm not the first to tell you, but your son is tremendously gifted!"

Mom smiled. "Well thank you! We try not to let Peter hear that too often - great artists who get swollen egos have notoriously brief careers."

Ms. Hill laughed. "Hey Peter, do you mind if I borrow your phone and mom for a few minutes? There are just a few details I have to go over with the designated parent or guardian of the applicant."

I nodded dumbly before remembering she couldn't see me. 

"Sure - by all means," I said. 

Mom picked up the phone and switched it off speaker. "Yes?"

I tried not to look as tense as I felt. Mom listened for a moment, then smiled and seemed to forget I was in the room. 

"I know exactly what you mean. Peter's the eldest of a pair. Uhuh. How old is he? Mmhm. Tough age for us though!" 

I got up and headed towards my bedroom, only letting out a sigh of relief as I slipped out of sight in the hall. This must be one of those inter-mom discussions one hears from time to time. I've never had much of a social life for her to dote over, and as a rule I don't pay attention to whether Tess has the popularity gene that passed me by, so I very rarely witnessed mom communicating with others of her caste. 

"No… no, my husband, Peter's father passed away rather suddenly two months ago. We're still… adjusting." 

I winced in sympathy. This was the first time I'd heard mom talk about my dad since…

 _Since your birthday._ Said my inner Prince of Denmark. _Since he was murdered on your birthday. Let that wound serve to motivate you…_

I let Hamlet Parker drone his edgy soliloquy in the back of my mind and turned my attention back to eavesdropping like a dutiful son of two superspies ought.

"Hm, well, Peter's school doesn't let out until June 22nd, but his finals are done the week of the 3rd. I don't think they'll miss him terribly if he starts his summer break a few days in advance.

"Oh, really? Well that would be wonderful! That's just… thank you. Thank you - he'll be ecstatic, I'm sure. Friday the 10th. We'll have him all packed and ready to go. Thank you so much. Yup, you too. Bye." 

I heard the boop of my phone being hung up from just inside the threshold of the door I was hiding outside, and jumped with a start.

"The people at Excelsior! Comics have a very high opinion of your work, kiddo," mom said, stepping out into the hall.

I hadn't heard her get up from the couch, and her voice hadn't sounded any rearer as she'd closed the distance. I tried to recall how many times growing up that she'd snuck up on me out of nowhere. I realized it had been a constant - some kids worried their moms had eyes in the back of their heads. I just went with the (quite correct, as it turns out) assumption that my mom had eyes and ears _everywhere._

"Apparently the seminar staff arrives the week before the first session to work out the course and workshop schedules, and Ms. Hill tells me most of them have seen your winning comic. She lives on Long Island, and she offered to pick you up on her way upstate on Friday, June 9th. You'll have a full week of one-on-one time with real professionals in the business before any of the other kids arrive, and then you're signed on for the whole summer. 

"From what Ms. Hill said, you'll be making real connections in the industry. You could have an internship with your favorite comic book company before you even graduate high school."

"Oh - wow. That's…" I didn't know what to say. Between how awesome the cover story sounded and filtering the grains of truth in it, my mind just wasn't processing at full speed.

Mom suddenly got a sad, far away look in her eyes. She knelt down next to me. "That is, well, if you don't mind being gone for the whole summer. Your dad and I never got the chance to do the summer camp thing…" she put her arms around me and pulled me to her. 

Not fast enough that I didn't see the tears forming in her eyes, but a good try at concealing them anyway. 

"I figured one more summer for Pete to just be a kid… that couldn't hurt, right?"

I hugged my mom tight, and fought back tears of my own. 

"Maybe not," I said, "But even if I really should be getting to growing up, one more summer as a kid sure sounds nice."

_

"My summer break starts early this year." I told Ri.

"Oh?" She replied.

We'd managed to actually make it back out onto the roof this time. It had rained all morning and was still overcast. The tar of the roof still felt unnaturally warm through our sneakers, but considering it was early June, we could have been a lot worse off. 

"My dad's coworker finally got in touch." I said,

It was a given at this point that there were gaps in my story that I would prefer to keep vacant, if only for Ri's safety. Beyond what I couldn't disclose though, my one friend and loyal confidant deserved to be kept informed.

What I couldn't _disclose_ ; keeping my one _loyal confidant informed_ \- if nothing else, at least I was already acclimating to the spy jargon.

"Because I was an eyewitness, he's arranged to bring me in on the manhunt to identify the killer." 

Ri raised an eyebrow, but didn't interrupt.

Admittedly, I knew the logic on that part was a stretch, but it was the closest fit to the truth while still keeping Ri safe. SHIELD was widely recognized as the top covert intelligence agency in the world. As oxymoronic as a famously successful spy organization sounded, it was nevertheless accurate; SHIELD had eyes and ears everywhere. 

On my birthday, Hydra (now Jörmungandr) managed to steal SHIELD's comprehensive personnel roster _and_ Erskine's formula, all before noon. I couldn't even fathom the level of skill or the magnitude of resources it took to pull such a thing off. The less I shared with Ri, the safer she was.

"How long do you think you'll be gone for?" She asked. 

The question sounded stiff, as if it weren't the right one to get to the answers she wanted, but a paltry next best option.

_Is there a chance that I won't come back. That is the question she doesn't want to ask, but that most needs answering._

"Oh, I'll be back before school starts up again in the fall," I said with all the casual confidence I wasn't feeling.

I had come this far. It was Thursday afternoon. I'd be on the road to Camp Heligh by the same time the following day. I was getting my shot. Beyond that, I couldn't begin to guess what the future might hold.

Also - Camp Heligh? The original Project Rebirth was housed at Camp Lehigh in Jersey. Fury certainly had a thing for camouflaging the truth in unsubtle advertising, but I couldn't argue against its success.

"You know you're kind of my only friend here," she said. 

It wasn't a question, and also not the statement that fit the meaning behind it. We were both loners not necessarily by anyone's fault or intention, so social awkwardness was sort of hard-wired into us, especially where deep emotional intimacy was concerned. I'm told that programming fades over time in the face of mature adult honesty, but when the situation calls for someone to openly say 'you're my best friend, and i'll miss you,' few and far between are the adults who can pull it off.

I hugged her. It wasn't as natural a thing to do as I'd wanted it to be - she _was_ my best friend, but she was also a pretty girl, and I didn't exactly have much practice with either case.

"Come back safe." She said

"I will." I replied.

_

The following morning, Mom called to let the school know I wouldn't be in attendance for the remaining week. I packed --mainly art supplies, camp tradeable junk food and overnight stay stuff-- I didn't actually own any superspy accessories, but it was safe to assume the goal was still to keep up appearances anyway. 

A little after ten, a minivan pulled up in front of the house, and honked. Mom and Tess helped me lug two big roll-on suitcases out to the curb, but I insisted I was man enough to load them in myself.

The interior at the trunk was a solid wall of luggage, save for a space conveniently just large enough for my additions.

Maria Hill, who had been making small talk with my mom out the rolled down passenger side window, shouted over "Use the rear left door, dear - the other one has a child lock that is completely busted."

I did as instructed, clambered in and buckled up. Ms. Hill said her goodbyes. Mom, Tess and I had already said ours - all agreed that a prolonged farewell would have been... unhealthy.

We drove off, and I turned to my fellow passenger. "Do you think she bought it?"

Nick Fury sat in an alcove that was definitely an aftermarket addition to the minivan's design, concealed perfectly from all outside view by a computer bank with an outward facade of packed-in luggage.

He shrugged. "You're here, aren't you?

"Still, Mary Parker is not one to be underestimated. I'll be upping my personal security measures as an added precaution. Better safe than too dead to be sorry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UP NEXT: Letters from Superhero Summer Camp - 06/06/2020


	6. Letters from Superhero Summer Camp

**6: Letters from Superhero Summer Camp**

_Dear Mom,_

_(and Tess)_

_I won't tell you that the 7 hour drive to Camp Heligh was a breeze and a pleasure, but Ms. Hill made it bearable, despite my being the only squishy and buckled-in object in a vehicle filled with precariously stacked luggage containers._

_I was fortunate in that it was only a small tackle box of art markers that fell on my head when we stopped short for a moron in traffic (I also can affirm that Ms. Hill is a responsible New York driver - her shouted curses at the aforementioned moron both brief and effective, earning two flipped birds of approval). No first aid was needed._

_After we escaped the bounds of the urban sprawl, it was only a matter of time before boredom lulled me to sleep. Rolling hills and countryside gradually gave way to more rolling hills and countryside, and I was unconscious for the last five of seven hours. I slept so comfortably in that minivan chrysalis of art supplies and roll-on luggage that I only vaguely remember rousing myself at a rest stop to use the facilities and eat a sandwich when offered. I had some trouble remembering how to walk when Ms. Hill woke me on arrival, but here I am, summering in exotic Fredonia._

_Like the dutiful gentleman you raised me to be, I helped unpack the bounty of our caravan, and so, loath though I am to interrupt my narrative, I am beyond the pale of reason amid the grips of exhaustion. Write again tomorrow,_

_Love,_

_-Pete_

I put down the letter, bewildered. It was in my handwriting, right down to the all-caps block lettering getting steadily larger and harder to read as I got lazy in the last paragraph.

And I didn't write it.

"This reads like I wrote it," I said, bewildered.

Which is also why I don't write letters. My letter writing style makes Dickens and Twain look like paragons of unpretentiousness.

"You're writing style wasn't exactly enigmatic. We already had the sample you submitted to Excelsior! Comics." Nick Fury replied.

I couldn't help but suspect there were many more layers of complexity to this than a simple forgery, but I also couldn't argue with results. As a spy, mom had made her living extracting truth from those trying to conceal it. This letter was quite a bit more convincing than the most convincing thing I could come up with, and it was still at best a crapshoot.

I'll give my cover story this much: it made a lot more sense to a rational mind than how it actually happened.

_

I couldn't tell you whether Camp Heligh's name was a case of accidentally ironic anagram, or Fury's take on the misdirection techniques of stage magicians. I suspected the latter. 

Setting out in a turn-of-the-century Dodge Grand Caravan packed brimful with surveillance equipment disguised as camp luggage, I just hoped the destination my mom had packed me for was part of the elaborate ruse. Fredonia, NY is a 7 hour drive north and west of NYC.

Director Fury kept stoically silent as we trundled laboriously to the city's western outskirts. He busied himself with a holographic computer interface he was projecting from a device on his forearm. The thing was too big and distinctly scifi to pass for a wristwatch, though I'd have sworn it had been one when I'd first gotten in the car. 

I stared out the window, struggling to ignore the looming threat of seven hours of cramped boredom. I fought, and knew I'd battle on - I was a candidate for Project Rebirth, dammit, not some whiny kid asking 'are we there yet?' every twenty minutes.

Add to that the half a million questions buzzing around in my skull, and the next seven hours looked ever more like endurance training for resisting interrogation.

I'd been aware of the possibility that things were at least in part exactly what they seemed, and I'd packed and prepared accordingly. I'd drunk nothing before setting out, and packed the messenger bag from Aunt May with anti-boredom supplies for the commute.

In hindsight, my sketchbook and all 12 issues of the Cold War commemorative time-hopping epic, **Captain America: Winter Soldier** may not have been the wisest selection. Having never been on a long trip like this before, I probably hadn't taken the possibility of motion sickness as seriously as I'd ought.

I'd made it halfway through issue #2 and gave up the ghost less than forty-five minutes after we'd set off. Nausea was rendering my attempts at refastening the artisanal bronze clasp on the bag an ordeal. 

Just as I had begun to truly lament the prospect of this road trip from hell, Fury stirred, and said "I think about here will suffice. Ms. Hill?"

"Right-o, Boss," said our driver.

It occurs to me that contrary to the fiction I would be sending my mom, Ms. Hill hadn't said much of anything since we set off, and certainly hadn't made any sort of idle chitchat to make the commute more bearable.

What she did do was engage the hyperdrive. At a tap on the touchscreen of the dashboard, the car gave a Star Trekkian _voiiiib_ sound, and lurched forward in a way that my already harried stomach really did not like. I was thrown violently back against my seat, and found myself thinking about how they never show what happens to a human passenger if an Autobot transforms from car to giant robot while they're still inside.

Then, for lack of a better way of describing it, the pressure in the cabin stabilized.

The part about being struck on the head by a box of art markers is true.

"Camp Heligh ETA: two hours, seven minutes." Said Ms. Hill.

But that couldn't be right. From the feel of it, we were sitting completely still. I couldn't even feel the low rumble of an idling engine. Leaning around the precariously stacked cases of art supplies (prismacolor markers, india ink, bristol board - all brand new, and professional grade - apparently money was no obstacle when it came to fabricating my cover story), I checked out the window.

We were moving alright. If I had to guess, we were going three, maybe four times the top speed limit for the Autobahn.

I pulled my phone out to Google a speed/time/distance algebraic calculator (all those study halls listening to Ri talk physics and applied mathematics seemed to have rubbed off on me a bit). Also to Google the speed limit for the Autobahn. I knew people drove really fast on there, but hadn't a clue the numerical value of really fast.

"I'm afraid you'll find a Google search somewhat difficult here, Mr. Parker," said Director Fury, "your simcard was disabled the moment you got in the car. We'll supply you with a more secure replacement once we arrive."

"If you're wondering how fast we're going," Ms. Hill chimed in, "we're traveling at a constant rate just over 180 miles per hour."

A constant rate… that seemed impossible - even to someone with my limited capacity for math and physics.

I looked out the window again. The blurring scenery whipped past almost too rapidly for me to spot details. In places where I could see for some distance, I saw swift and dizzying rotations from time to time.

At normal speeds, the doppler effect would cause distant objects almost to stand still. At four times those speeds, looking out the window restored my motion sickness instead of relieving it. Suffice to say, we were making turns. As far as I could tell, we just weren't slowing down to do it.

"...how…?" I said, swallowing back the urge to retch. If this was the nature of road trips, I might just prefer to stay local.

Fury smiled dryly. "Stark works in subtle and mysterious ways."

So this vehicle was some kind of Stark Innovations prototype then. Given the surreal, deus ex machina-ness of my journey so far, it made sense that a SHIELD convoy containing Nick Fury would use Stark's super-advanced designs.

What struck me as odd though: I'd heard Tony Stark had been lightyears ahead of his time, sure, but subtle? Mysterious? The stories I'd heard about the late, great near-Invincible Iron Man described a genius about as subtle and mysterious as an adolescent bull elephant rampaging through Times Square.

Two hours - not seven. The very notion of it was amazing, but also somehow a little unsettling. I'd had a million questions before the minivan went all Tron: Legacy-level sci fi on me, and now I probably had at least twice as many. Yet within the eerie stillness of a vehicle somehow pressurized against the force of gravity, I found myself introspective.

It had been a little over two months since my father's murder. In all that time, I'd thought of little save the chance to prove myself.

In two short hours, I would see very clearly what that chance entailed. My mom's words, which had felt so trivial at the time, came echoing back in my mind.

'One more summer,' she'd said, 'for Pete to just be a kid… that couldn't hurt, right?'

I was fifteen, and in that light, I'd never stopped to ask myself what _my shot_ would mean. 

I looked down at the comic books and other miscellany scattered across my lap. My messenger bag must have come open when the minivan lurched into hyperdrive. 

For the first time ever, I wasn't sure the answer I needed was within those hallowed pages.

Superheroes question whether they'd rather be human all the time. It's a major motif of the genre. Here I was, about to take my very rich parents down the dark alley for a shortcut through the mean streets of prohibition-era Gothamm City. Here I was, a reckless but well-intended airforce pilot being offered a glowing green ring by a little alien dude. Here I was an eternally optimistic CSI about to go into work at the forensics lab the night of an oddly selective freak lightning storm. 

In the comics, the Winged NightRat, Emerald Orbsman and Quickener all look back and wonder if things could have been different; if they could have led a normal life. Hell, Quickener even runs back in time to double check every once in a while.

I didn't have to wonder. As far as I'd come, that one-way door to super heroism was still at least two hours away on the horizon. I could get all the way to that very last step, and still just walk away.

It felt weird to even hypothesize like that. Superhero was my dream job, even with all its drawbacks, the crappy pay and no dental benefits, but like I said: it's a major genre motif. I am nothing if not loyal to the genre.

Thus mulling and brooding, I reverently gathered up the comics to put them back in my bag. As I went to replace them, I discovered a manilla envelope that I didn't recognize, nestled between my sketchbook and my copy of The Brothers Karamazov, another item I did not recall packing.

Attached to the manilla envelope was a note, reading:

_Thought you might want to have these along, in case you need material over which to brood dramatically (for inspiration)._

_Love,_

_Mom_

Inside the envelope was a photocopy of the arachnid-themed hero Steve Rogers had drawn at my age, and dad's letter.

To just be a kid, a little while longer. Two hours more to stare in wonderment at the horizon - I could manage that.

No longer troubled with motion sickness (utterly ignorant of our motion at all in fact, as long as I didn't look out the window), I brought out my sketchbook and mechanical pencil.

'So if this summer goes according to plan --and by plan I mean standard plot arc for a comic book origin story-- then I'm going to need an alter ego.'

I stared long at the sketch of _The Amazing Human Spider,_ pondering _._ Well, spider-hero was an interesting theme, but it only really worked if you were, I dunno, bitten by a radioactive spider, for instance. Still, I dug the acrobatic aspect. 

It lacked defensive capability, though. There was no armor plating, and since Cap's shield had disappeared into the ice with him in the forties, without a Spider-themed danger sense or some such, head-to-toe spandex seemed just a bit impractical.

I drew my concept art in a more traditional heroic stance than Cap's Human Spider, my hero standing contrapposto in three quarter profile. It's the default pose for concept art splash pages; you can display the most characteristic aspects of a design in that position, so it's a valuable reference tool, even though characters seldom stand that way in the finished product.

Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but Erskine's formula gave Steve Rogers the whole 'Chump-to-Champ' Dynamic Tension fitness treatment in a single dose, so I gave my heroic alter ego a good foot of additional height and twice as much shoulder as I could boast. 'A guy can dream,' I thought, adding a six pack and the sort of lean but well-defined thews that Conan the Barbarian might have envied. 

For the uninitiated, 'thews' is an archaic pulp novel word for rippling muscle. Read Robert E. Howard to know more, but try not to take it too seriously.

I kept the full face mask with the expressive teardrop eyes, though I bulked out the shape some, making it look more like a close-fitting fantasy helm than a skintight cowl.

I added low-profile armor plating over the upper chest, shoulders, and outer thighs. Articulated segments covered the elbows and finger joints. Lastly, I drew inspiration from three decades of B-rate cult classic sci fi films, and equipped him with knee-high space trooper boots and fingerless gauntlets that ran from elbow to wrist.

I considered adding collapsible kite shields on the forearms, but I decided to hold off on accessorizing for now. Comic book history suggests it is unwise to make a habit of adding tactical belts to every available space on a character, however cool and edgy it may seem at the time.

Looking closely at the photocopy, I noticed Cap had originally marked the divided sections of the outfit with notations indicating his color selections, though he'd erased these notes pretty well. The web-covered parts red, the shaded-in parts dark blue. Cap sure liked his stars-and-stripes color palette.

Retrieving the box of art markers that had brained me several minutes prior (after all, it would have been a shame to let such a quality cover story not get any real use), I figured I'd go for a slightly less patriotic scheme. Despite all the good in what he represents, and despite him being my idol in most ways, the mantle of 'Captain America, legendary symbol of western democracy and patriotic verve' is not one I'd shoulder in our modern epoch without due reluctance. Sure I wanted to be a superhero, but within reason!

I kept the dark blue underlayer, but went with a burnished gunmetal gray for the armor plating. 

For the eyes and the more subtle accent lines, I chose an iridescent bronze.

In the end, it was only slightly less ostentatious than Cap's star spangled splendor, but I just wasn't cut out for the muted tones of the brooding vigilante.

I had only just packed the art supplies away and was pondering a name for my half-hypothetical hero self, when the car lurched again. I flinched, but luckily I'd replaced the markers more securely this time, and no further injuries ensued.

"Mr. Parker, this is your stop." said Director Fury.

Had two hours really passed just like that? I fished my phone out again to check the clock, but this time there was no technological miracle involved - I'd just been engrossed in my artwork.

The rear passenger door to the caravan slid open, and I had to squint as my eyes adjusted to the late afternoon summer sun.

"Another kid. Really, Fury? What am I, SHIELD's babysitter?" The voice was not one with which I was familiar, but whoever it was did not sound happy to see me.

I climbed out and fumbled half-blindly to the trunk to retrieve the rest of my luggage, and also so my vision would have time to come back into focus. When I returned, I saw the voice belonged to a heavyset man in his late forties. He wore a look that said 'I'm getting too old for this,' and a name badge that proclaimed him Happy Hogan, Chief of Security for Stark Energy Innovations.

"And here I was thinking you didn't look Happy to see me," I cannot take credit for that one. The pun seemed to bypass my mental filter completely, and the comic timing surprised even me.

"Great," said Happy Hogan with all the enthusiasm of a DMV employee on a Monday, "This one thinks he's the next Groucho Marx. Aren't you a little young for one-liners, kid?"

I'm sure my automatic quip reflex had another real zinger lined up, but at that very instant, my peripheral vision finally caught up, and the full measure of my surroundings left me momentarily speechless.

This was definitely not the rented out office space at an upstate YMCA advertised in the Excelsior! Summer Seminar brochure.

This facility is what would happen if George Lucas and James Cameron designed a university campus together. All reflective glass panes laid over matte chrome scaffolding, the place had a neo-futurist aesthetic that gave off a real ' _pardon our mess, Death Star still under construction'_ vibe.

Erected around the central courtyard area where I'd been dropped off were buildings varying in size from neighborhood drug store to college football stadium. There didn't seem to be a particular rhyme or reason to the layout. It looked more like additions were built as the need for them arose. 

Yet even with the seeming haphazardness, a sleekness of aesthetic pulled it all together. Though I'd probably need a GPS to find my way around, I could tell the place was not arranged thoughtlessly. 

Nor was it devoid of a certain utopian appeal. Adjoining the well-manicured patch of lawn where the minivan had deposited me, a half circle reflecting pool mirrored the crystalline blue summer sky, bordered by a row of white sakura trees in full bloom.

No wonder it was so bright here - with all the chrome, white and mirrored surfaces, I might squint like a spaghetti western star before the summer was out.

As I watched, the surface of the pool shimmered, and I realized it wasn't a pool at all. A sleek black stealth jet, similar to the one by which Von Strucker made his getaway, rose silently through the illusory water, hovered a moment in the air above the pool, and then vanished into the horizon in less time than it would have taken me to blink. Only a faint breeze rustled the surrounding blossoms, and to my surprise, when a few petals drifted onto the surface of the not-a-real-reflecting pool, they floated and left ripples.

Yeah, the term awestruck comes to mind.

"There's something you don't see every day, huh kid?" said Happy Hogan.

Turning back to him, I saw he was smiling.

"Yeah - in case you're wondering, it never gets old. Come on - I'll show you to your quarters."

_

"So this place is owned by Stark Technologies?" I asked. 

Leaving the courtyard area, Happy (I couldn't bring myself to see him as 'Mr. Hogan' for some reason) had swiped a key card at an oblong building adjacent to the reflecting pool. Three stories high and as broad as a short city block, with the World of Tomorrow feel this place had, I was half expecting moving sidewalks.

To my mild disappointment, the interior was one long series of identical intersecting hallways lined on both sides with heavy metal firedoors. Lacking the more luxuriant amenities of a furnished hotel, it could only have been a dormitory.

"Technically, it's Stark Energy Innovations. We rebranded in 2014," Happy grunted, hauling my heavier roll-on case up the stairs with more annoyance than actual difficulty.

He'd insisted on setting a brisk pace in delivering me to my lodgings, yet to his chagrin, he had more trouble keeping up than I did. We'd gotten turned around at least once searching for my room in the labyrinth of identical halls, only for Happy to realize on one occasion we weren't even on the right floor.

"This facility, and by virtue thereof, my role as security liaison, has been on loan to SHIELD since 2012. Fury seems to think that means he can call me to act as nanny and chauffeur whenever he starts a new pet project. Well I'll tell you something, kid - when this latest run in the maze is over, I'm putting in for a transfer. I have had it up to here with chasing after over-privileged teenagers!"

This last was said with the emphatic sliding of a keycard, the hauling open of a fire door, and planting my suitcase with finality by the hall closet.

"Your lodgings, monsieur." He said dryly.

I didn't begrudge Happy his grumblings. My guess was he had a bit more put on his plate on a daily basis than fell into his job description.

"Thanks," I said with a gracious nod.

I stepped past him into the room, and Happy turned to go.

"Before I forget," he said, handing me a black rectangular package slightly larger than a credit card, "this is your golden ticket, kid. It's not a hotel, so you don't get a spare copy - don't lose it."

I thanked him again, but he'd already turned to go, muttering something about babysitting and UPS, I think.

The room resembled what I'd seen of college dorms in the virtual tours my high school held in the auditorium occasionally. Standard twin bed and desk, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, dresser, small and uncomfortably firm loveseat and a coffee table guaranteed to batter the shins - all the comforts of not-at-home.

I searched for a light switch to better examine the 'golden ticket' Happy had given me. What I found instead was a touchscreen interface definitely more to the expectations I'd developed having arrived by quantum flux minivan.

After nearly five minutes of fiddling with the thing, I came to the conclusion that the only environmental settings not available were the ones that would totally defy the laws of physics.

I was half an hour fiddling with an adaptive lighting scheme that would turn the room from tranquil rain forest to las vegas strip when I clapped three times, when I noticed how much time I was wasting. I unpacked my things to a repeated mantra of 'I will not get distracted by cool stuff and procrastinate', and remembered the package Happy gave me.

Unfolding a matte black cardstock envelope, I found an ID card with a holographic photo of me (for some reason my birth date had been shifted two years), and a replacement simcard and nano SD storage card for my phone.

"I'm not in the habit of having to explain myself to SHIELD's Executive Council," said Nick Fury, seated at my desk not three feet from me as if he'd been there the whole time, "So as far as anyone needs to know, you're of legal age to enlist."

"Born March 28th, 1999. Got it." I said, taking a few deep breaths, doing my best to steady and calm my frazzled nerves.

It's not that I startle easily (though not with particular difficulty either). Apparently I just know too many ninjas. I bent to retrieve my phone and the parts I was about to install, all of which had spun out of my hands when Fury made his presence known.

"That simcard comes with built-in preventative measures. Calls will start to cut out and lose reception quality if you run the risk of saying anything compromising. Text messaging and outgoing data applications have similar precautions installed. 

"Your storage upgrade also contains a preinstalled app through which you'll receive daily instructions and access credentials within the facility. It's Stark tech, so you'll find your battery life and device performance markedly improved as well."

"Cool," I said, a little absently.

I was still trying to get my bearings. I'd closed and bolted the door after Happy left - how had Fury gotten in? Had he been here the whole time?

"Oh, before I leave, I thought you might want to know how your cover story is going to play out regarding keeping up appearances back home,"

Fury withdrew a folded bundle of notepapers from his breast pocket, and handed them over.

"Your letters home from camp," he stated with a hint of amusement.

I took the first letter, and read:

_Dear Mom,_

_(and Tess)_

_I won't tell you that the 7 hour drive…_

_..._

Which brings us full circle.

_

I handed Fury back the letters, and he rose to leave.

"So that's all then?" I asked, "You drop me off in the plaza, Happy delivers the essentials, and you show up to -what- to deliver my mail? Seems a stretch, Director."

Fury's good eye narrowed calculatingly. "Still trying to see ahead of your opponent's next move. Good to see you remember what I taught you. Forwarding your mail is only my _official_ reason for being here.

"You are here to prove your viability as a potential SHIELD asset. In this particular case, to participate in a very exclusive clinical trial.

"27 individuals besides yourself have volunteered as potential candidates for this hopefully final incarnation of Project Rebirth. Three besides yourself are completely aware of what they've signed up for."

Fury had not met my gaze as he spoke. He went first to the lighting interface on the wall, deactivated the artificial lighting. The east wall of the room was floor-to-ceiling windows, though the glass could be adjusted to anything from one-way privacy glass to the semblance of a solid gray concrete wall, if one was feeling urban chic. The window faced out from the facility, upon the northernmost stretch of the Appalachian mountains. 

The sun was only just descending from zenith, well out of sight from this east-facing vantage. But it's summer brilliance struck the forest-blanketed slopes, which shone vibrant gold and emerald as if the radiance came from within.

Standing before that cross-section of verdant, luminous forest and cloudless azure sky, Fury loomed only as a dark, brooding silhouette. Hands clasped behind his back, he seemed in that moment as ominous as a gathering storm.

"After today, there are no more chess lessons in the park. The training wheels are off, Mr. Parker.

"Starting at 06:00 tomorrow, you are one of 28 longshots. I'm here in my capacity as Langston Radford one last time, to make sure you know why you want this."

Fury shifted slightly left, putting his silhouette in profile. His one sighted eye glittered with a strange werelight that made the hackles rise at the back of my neck. It felt like he wasn't just looking at me - he was looking _into_ me.

"Two months ago, Wolfgang Von Strucker murdered Rick Parker in cold blood. You were there to see him pull the trigger.

"Because of who your father was, and the kind of man I suspect you may yet grow to be, I am willing to offer you the opportunity your father turned down, if you prove capable. But you know what Erskine's formula unlocks. If you're choosing this path for vengeance, you should be aware of what you'll become, if you succeed."

If Fury was at all phased by the sudden sigh of cathartic laughter which erupted from me without warning, he didn't show it.

"Is _that_ all!" I exclaimed, relieved.

I'd been conflicted, in a way, about this very issue, but from a very different angle.

"Director Fury, the last thing I told my father before he went with Von Strucker was that the world needs more heroes, willing and able to stand up for what's right. He responded by telling me about my Uncle Ben's death. I think… it's not just because I'm his son…" my voice started to fail me.

My vision blurred as the tears welled threateningly, but I swallowed hard, blinked and fought it back.

"When Von Strucker pulled the trigger, Dad was looking right in my eyes. There was no King of Denmark cry for vengeance in that look. Dad trusted that what I believe in was worth more than his life… he trusted that I would choose the right path for the right reasons.

"Don't get me wrong - if I get my hands on that murdering monocular jerkwad, I'm gonna knock his nose into next Tuesday," --isn't alliteration grand?-- "but I want to be a hero for the same reason I love to write and draw heroes." 

I wracked my brain for an articulate explanation of that reason.

Ultimately I settled on short, straight and to the point (there's a first time for everything). 

"It's just who I am." I said, shrugging.

Fury turned back to face the window, but I'm pretty sure I caught the hint of an approving smirk before he turned fully away.

"The day is still young, Mr. Parker. If I were you, I'd finish setting up that phone and get acquainted with the facility. See you at 06:00."

He turned to leave. No smoke bomb or vanishing act. He simply unbolted the door and strode out into the hall as if that was exactly the way he'd come. For all I know, it could have been exactly the way he'd come.

_

I wasn't long in setting up the new simcard and activating the app Fury had mentioned, which was part keycard, part itinerary, part video game mission log and minimap. After that, I grabbed my sneakers and made for the door with all haste. Camp Heligh (if that was its real name) was vast, and daylight was a-burning.

I made it a whopping thirty feet past the dormitory's front door before my cousin Ben dashed around a corner without looking where he was going, and knocked us both sprawling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE: Due to a number of personal challenges that require my attention and a number of art commissions (yes, Avenging Knight-Spider will feature illustrations when time allows) that beg completion before the close of the month, Avenging Knight-Spider will be on a short hiatus. Check back on or after Saturday, July 4th, 2020 for the next exciting installment:  
> UP NEXT: Collision Course - 7/4/2020


	7. Collision Course

**7: Collision Course**

There isn't much family resemblance between myself and my cousin, although I'm told there had been when we were still young children; Aunt May used to call me his little clone.

Ben is tall, half an inch past six foot, scarecrow thin, but with uncannily wide shoulders, and he slouches like someone afraid they're too big for the room. His face and hands have a long, somber grace to them, like those of a concert pianist with a tortured soul. Add to that a graveyard tan, dark auburn tresses long enough to be tied back in a ponytail and eyes that look like they've seen too much when he daydreams, and he could pass for a vampire.

Not the glittery angsty kind - he would never tolerate such an offensive comparison - the Anne Rice, dark-poetry-of-eternally-mourning-his-own- undeath variety.

Last I'd heard from my cousin, he'd secured a summer internship at Alchemax, a genetics research firm founded by one of his professors. How said internship led to Ben dashing recklessly around corners at a secret SHIELD installation is anybody's guess.

"What are you doing here?" We both asked simultaneously as we got to our feet.

Confused terror settled into the pit of my stomach. In spite of all my efforts to craft a perfect cover story, here was the chink in my armor. Fury's chess analogy couldn't possibly have predicted it. After all the hoops I'd jumped through to avoid the wrath of Mom and keep my family safe from a truth that could put them in harm's way if Jörmungandr ever tracked it down, here was my cousin. My alibi suddenly had all the sureness of ballistics armor made of wet tissue paper. 

Ben's expression mirrored my shock.

"You can't tell anyone," I said,

"I won't tell anyone," he said at the same time.

Befuddled relief forcibly evicted my confused terror.

Ben straightened up, dusted some grass off the elbows and seat of his lab coat, and smiled in the timid, yet disarming way he had.

"I think this might actually be a fortuitous happenstance,” my cousin said.

Ben is soft spoken, but eloquent almost to a fault when he does speak up. He's a bit of a paradox, socially-speaking, with a vocabulary and sense of decorum that would have better suited a 19th century servant of the aristocracy.

Anyone who got to know him would surely find him a welcome addition to their social life, yet as far as I know, in high school he'd had even fewer friends than I did.

But he knew me, and trusted me. Well enough it seemed, that he wasn't the least concerned about the why and how of our meeting.

As casually as if we'd bumped into each other anywhere other than at a top-secret facility, he said "Do you happen to have along the digital camera I got you for your birthday? If so, I might need to borrow it."

And as if we had indeed bumped into each other anywhere else but at a top-secret facility, it just so happened that I had in fact brought the camera.

_

"I appreciate it, Pete - I promise I'll get it back to you as soon as possible." 

We were heading down the main stairwell of the dormitory building, having made a quick lap back to my room to retrieve the camera. What with him having an actual destination in mind, I saw fit to let Ben lead the way - I could save my more aimless exploring for later. 

Watching him flip buttons and adjust the settings on the DSLR as he strode determinedly ahead, I was beginning to suspect I'd underestimated Ben's skill level in photography. His eyes swept about keenly the instant he opened the lens cap, seeking the most poignant or candid shot to frame. The camera bag slung over his shoulder rested too naturally at his hip for him to be the amateur hobbyist I'd assumed he was.

Ben must have noticed my scrutiny. As we went along, he unraveled his photographic origins.

"Graduating high school two years early, I didn't have much saved up for a college lifestyle. Even a full honors scholarship doesn't cover every detail, and I didn't want to take out student loans. I found a flyer on campus for a freelance photography company called ALIAS, and called to see if they needed any help. 

"The owner was actually a P.I. looking for an assistant with experience. I was her only applicant in months, and I was desperate for a job with flexibility and hours to fit my school schedule. I guess necessity dictated the terms for both of us. Rather than telling me not to let the door hit me on the way out, she hired me -albeit off the books, and at pennies on the dollar. She set me up to cover a few weddings and bar mitzvahs on weekends to refine my skills with the camera."

Ben smiled, remembering. "'It's money,' she'd say, 'just because it's something I wouldn't be caught dead doing doesn't mean it wouldn't help pay the rent.'

"I made a good amount in tips, and when Ms. Jones saw how quickly my technique was improving, she raised my wages, and brought me on for some of her other, less pedestrian jobs. I probably would have held off on an unpaid summer internship if Ms. Jones hadn't closed up shop abruptly and gone completely off-grid."

We were back on the sidewalk now, and Ben seemed to remember his original rushing pace. He quickened his steps and made an effort to abridge his story too.

"No-one has heard from Ms. Jones in months, but she's as tough as they come, so I'm far less worried for her safety than I am about being able to afford my balanced collegiate diet of pop tarts and ramen noodles."

That certainly explained how he developed (pardon the pun) the knack for photography, but I couldn't help a slight twinge of jealousy. My cousin the science whiz actually could be just as competent in the arts, and even make a buck at it on the side - he just had to want to.

And immediately, I chastised myself for such callousness. Ben had worked a weekend job to bolster his funds in college, so as not to burden his mom. Aunt May could be a shrewd businesswoman, but she was still a single mom who supported herself and her son predominantly on handmade jewelry sales on Etsy. 

To make matters worse, around the time of Ben's graduation, Aunt May was diagnosed with degenerative osteoarthritis in her knees, hips and wrists. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for Ben to make his education his top priority, knowing how his mom was struggling.

"So what's with the frantic dash for digital imaging equipment?" I asked as we hurried along. 

"Doctor Connors is about to test a new CRISPR-Cas procedure that could revolutionize the entire field, and neither of us thought to bring anything to record the auspicious moment. I was trying to find Happy - that is, Mr. Hogan, the head of security here, hoping maybe he had some surveillance equipment we could borrow,"

For those not up on the latest industry trends, CRISPR-Cas is a cutting edge gene editing technique.

What? I'm a comic geek - not a luddite - I know  _ some _ sciency stuff.

Okay, so maybe I googled it because I was toying with this idea for a superhero who could regenerate from any injury after having his genes spliced with a starfish. Still - I know  _ some  _ sciency stuff.

"I met Happy when I got here," I replied, "Something tells me he'd have been less than Happy to oblige."

Ben just gave me a deadpan look. I get it - not everyone likes bad puns - but a hero never compromises on what he believes in.

We'd arrived at another large chrome and mirrored glass building. This one was only two stories high, but much wider than the dormitory building - as broad across as a short city block. Ben hurriedly swiped a keycard and let us in.

The building must have been at least the same depth as it was wide, and only one floor, with an intricate ventilation system occupying most of the ceiling. A long promenade bisected the space, and the rooms to either side, of which there were only maybe eight or ten in total, were walled above waist height with clear panes of glass more than an inch thick. There was no lobby or reception area.

"Wait here," Ben called over his shoulder. He was already moving down the corridor at a pace just shy of jogging, "Doctor Connors is setting up for the test in Clean Room C. I don't think he'll mind an audience as long as I can vouch for you, but better to ask, just in case."

I waited. While I waited, I determined to practice another of the specialized skill sets I figured would be essential to a SHIELD operative; that of observation and deductive reasoning.

Growing up, if there was one thing in particular about my mom and dad that never seemed quite  _ normal,  _ it was how quickly and accurately they noticed things. As in the kind of observation and deduction skill that Sherlock Holmes would have nodded in acknowledgement of. 

You might wonder, with my particular attention to comic book plot detail, that I never suspected my parents were on that level. If it hadn't been for the fact that i had no other parents to compare them to, you'd probably be right. 

Still, I can recall one particular occasion which might have given me some clue. When I was twelve, I'd sprained my arm doing something careless and uncoordinated (I'm not accident prone, though most who know me would argue otherwise), and dad had taken me to the ER to get it checked out. 

_ _ _

_ "See that young guy in the far left corner there?" Dad said, _

_ He didn't point or gesture, even with his eyes. The waiting room wasn't standing room only, but it was an ER, so even at almost 2am, there was an abundance of curious characters to observe.  _

_ My arm hurt. Mom didn't think it was broken, but then, she hadn't felt the blinding flash of pain when I'd failed to stick my dismount, attempting to somersault off my bed and land on my feet on the way to the bathroom. Thankfully, the serious discussion of the consequences of reading comics in bed after lights out wouldn't happen until tomorrow. _

_ "He's been pacing that corner for a while," my dad continued. He was trying to distract me from the pain. _

_ "He's a Wall Street type - investment banker or the like. Changed out of his button down shirt, but there's a coffee stain on the collar of his undershirt, and another on his pants leg. Splash damage. Faint blood spatter on the shoulder of his jacket. Egg yolk stains on the right upper thigh of the pants too. He's squinting uncomfortably under the fluorescents, and his gait is just slightly uncoordinated. Also huffs, checks his wristwatch, rolls his eyes and mutters to himself periodically." _

_ Dad had my attention now. I watched the man out of the corner of my eye. I probably could have stared dead on without him noticing - the guy was in his own world, and clearly inconvenienced by that world having migrated to an ER waiting room. _

_ "Here's what happened," dad continued:, "It's a Friday night, so he and his buddy go out for a few drinks after work. Buddy can't hold his liquor, so this good samaritan takes him to a 24 hour diner to get some coffee and breakfast to sober up. _

_ "Egg yolk stain is from this guy's own carelessness, but the rest is from being a victim of circumstance. Buddy decides to get frisky with the waitress while she's serving the coffee. She pours it in buddy's lap in retaliation," _

_ I started to laugh, quietly, but dad frowned. _

_ "Sexual harassment is no laughing matter," he said, then the corner of his mouth twitched wryly, "but I'll admit, when justice is served... creatively, it can be entertaining." _

_ Dad shifted in his seat, trying for some semblance of comfort in a waiting room that couldn't even spare the luxury of old magazines. He'd only ever looked in the pacing guy's direction for the half a second it took to pass him on the way to our seats. Everything he was saying was based on that one cursory glance. _

_ "So the guy's drunken friend, now doused quite satisfactorily with coffee leaps up, splattering our friend here. Judging by the splatter pattern and coloration, the assault was overflow from a topped off cup well treated with half-and-half, so we're probably not in the ER for burns. _

_ "No, my guess, our debauched diner drunk got into an argument with the management, took a swing at a peaceable man otherwise much more capable of violence when necessary, and wound up with a broken nose and a black eye. The blood on our exasperated investment banker's jacket is -again- splash damage from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Poor sap was probably the other fool's designated driver." _

_ By now I was hooked. The story was wondrous for it's realism, and I stared in rapt attention at the doors leading back to the ER treatment area. Any minute, a drunk in a bloodied and coffee stained business suit would stumble out with his nose plugged with gauze, and prove my dad was some kind of psychic. The pain in my arm was almost completely forgotten. _

_ Sure enough, a few minutes later, out came just such a sorry sight, only in handcuffs, led by a police officer looking every bit as peeved as the waiting room pacer. _

_ "Huh," said Dad, "Guess I was off with the designated driver bit." _

_ _ _

I now suspected Dad had fabricated the designated driver piece to throw me off the real truth. 

So emerging from the reverie of my flashback, here I was, waiting. I let my eyes sweep the corridor where Ben had told me to wait, trying at that same practice of observation and deduction that must have been my parents' bread and butter in the spy business.

The rooms to either side of the central corridor were lined with transparent plastic shelving interspersed with laboratory work tables and diagnostic equipment stations.

Most of the space on the shelves was taken up with glass tanks and terrariums of varying sizes, all populated with the most diverse menagerie of flora and fauna. Each room's denizens seemed categorized by geological habitat, so a desert room, a rainforest room, local temperate clime, arctic tundra biome, and so on.

None of the animals were too large to be safely and humanely housed in their enclosures. From where I stood, I could pick out habitats for spiders, snakes, frogs, bats, deep sea fish, octopi, sharks, eels, rays, sea urchins, mollusks, crabs, various different types of lizards, some small rodents, some medium sized rodents, and in my humble opinion, too many tanks dedicated to creatures with many more than ten legs.

"Quite the menagerie, right?" Ben said, coming back down the hall at a somewhat more leisurely pace. "We only got here a few days ago. When Doctor Connors came by to pick me up in a minibus, I had no idea where we were headed. These were my fellow passengers,"

"Explains why neither of you thought to pack digital recording equipment," I replied.

I hadn't quite got through the deduction part of observation and deduction practice, but then there was a lot to see. I had had some advantage in developing observation skills as an artist, even though life drawing wasn't something I practiced often, but my deduction attempts had yielded only two facts.

One: Ben had intentionally left me in a part of the hall with no sharp corners, fragile objects or otherwise potential victims of my clumsiness.

And two: not one of the animals housed in the tanks and terrariums were standard examples of their species.

"So Ben, is it just me, or are all of your former fellow passengers glow-in-the-dark?" 

It was eerie. Every specimen within view gave off a faint, shimmering glow in a variety of ghostly neon hues.

"Doctor Connors says it's the one indulgence of vanity he permits himself. He developed a nutrient compound that allows animals to metabolize luciferin and produce luciferase, the molecule and enzyme present in bioluminescent algae that causes them to light up when disturbed. 

"Excepting a few species of predatory arachnids and amphibians, which manage to adapt the trait to their hunting methods, it's mostly just pretty to look at."

"Huh," I said.

At his mention of arachnids, my attention had been drawn to the exam room immediately to my left. The far back held a wall of terrariums, illuminated only by the ethereal blue of UV lamps. The whole wall was spiders.

The acuity of my vision being what it was even with glasses, I probably couldn't have spotted them if they didn't glow stark white against the shadows cast by their nebulous webs in the dim room.

Despite having a fairly normal lack of appreciation for creatures of the creepy crawly variety, I've always liked spiders. To be sure, it's the mythology and folklore surrounding them that sets them apart.

Anansi the Spider is one of the most beloved characters of African folklore, for all the same reasons I love superheroes. Anansi is a hunter, a trickster, a craftsman, a keeper of stories. He's known as one of the wisest of the wise, but ego and impulsivity frequently tangle him up, which is the part that makes him relatable. 

His mischief often causes general annoyance to the gods and other powerful sorts, and his deeds serve as heroic inspiration to the meek and downtrodden. 

Yes, if there's one animal in folklore that checks off the most boxes as relates to my definition of hero, it's wily old Anansi, weaving his webs and laughing to himself as he goes along.

Dead center of that wall of spiders was a terrarium that spanned floor to ceiling, and in it was the single spider that had drawn my eye from the first.

He was bigger than any of the others I could see, though only just. Glowing white like the rest, the details of him were obscured at this distance, but he gave off this impression of regalness, like he knew he was center stage. The longer I stared, the more I felt he was looking right back.

And (though I knew this was just my anthropomorphic imagination), he was  _ laughing. _ A low, wily chuckle that welcomed anyone to join in, providing they got the joke.

"...so I'm guessing a diet of nutrient compounds isn't the only work these guys have undergone though?" I asked.

When Ben replied, he spoke with a peculiar combination of hesitancy and pride, like a gossip sworn to secrecy.

"Well, actually, more than half of the species in this lab have no taxonomic designation. They're hybrids, but with their own stable genetic makeup - completely unique, but able to reproduce with near species with minimal risk of mutation."

"Wow," I said, more at his readiness to trust me with such confidential information than at the barrage of science jargon, "Doesn't the ASPCA or something get on Doctor Connors' case though, experimenting with animals like that?"

"I think you mean PETA," said a sardonic baritone in an accent that I guessed to be South African. 

At first glance, Connors cut the sort of unimposing figure that one only would have picked out of a crowd for the labcoat. Stare a moment longer, though; meet his eyes, perhaps, and a lasting impression was inevitable. He stared down at me past a long nose of elegant design, though marred by what looked to be the scars of very severe childhood acne. He was of middling height, but upon meeting his deep-set, almost yellow hazel eyes, his presence loomed as if he were seven feet tall.

Perhaps it's just because of my fascination with sci fi tropes like the mad scientist, but I like to think my first impressions of Doctor Connors warrant further description.

He was gaunt, wiry, and his clothes hung loose about his frame like hand-me-downs on a scarecrow, a description apropos also of his thin, unkempt straw colored hair and weather-worn complexion, but completely at odds with his reputation as a renowned man of science. He leaned heavily on a cane in his left hand as he limped towards us, swinging his whole body in a palsied sort of motion. His right arm hung at his side with a peculiar rigidity that was reminiscent of the rigor of a corpse, as was the withered, stunted hand at the end of it.

His appearance may have been just a bit necromantic, but the energy of his motions told of a ferocious vitality. The doctor's very aura was forward momentum, intellectual superiority, and I got the impression he wasn't so much offended by my question as wearied by the root of its ignorance.

"Mr. Parker, was it? When Mr. Reilly asked if his younger cousin could observe our experiment, I admit I was expecting some familial similarity in appearance," Connors' thin mouth twisted up into a sarcastic smirk, "but this resemblance is simply uncanny. Why, I'm not certain who is the clone and who the original."

For clarity's sake, if his tone hadn't been as dry as desert, you might have said it was dripping with sarcasm. Severus Snape, eat your heart out.

I shrugged, but volleyed back my best attempt at dry intellectual wit. "The wonders of heredity. Not only that, but would you believe our social security numbers only vary by the last two digits?"

Okay, so still not exactly New Yorker Magazine-quality, but progress when you compare it with Happy not being Happy to oblige.

Doctor Connors didn't reply, but gave a slight nod of (I assume) approval, then turned back the way he'd come. He strode away in that strange, Quasimodo-inspired gait, moving with an agility that would have been astounding even had he been a model of health and fitness. Ben hurried after, and I fell into a half-jog behind them.

"To answer your query, Mr. Parker, PETA was surprisingly amenable to my methods, once they discovered I use my own body as my primary test subject, only treating other species once a procedure is confirmed to have only beneficial effects.

"Also, though they take rather a strict stance on cloning, my creating entirely unique new species is a peculiar loophole in their moral philosophy."

Well, he definitely fit the Mad Scientist M.O., but having only scratched the surface, I couldn't have told you whether we were talking Victor Frankenstein tragic brilliance or another flavor of Bond villain. 

Another keycard swipe, and we were in a room divided in half by another wall of glass. My DSLR was on a tripod and hooked up to a widescreen computer monitor above a desk to one side. On the other side of the partition was an articulated exam chair, like you see in a dentist's office, and an adjoining tray table with surgical instruments on it.

"I've taken the liberty of prerecording our hypotheses," said the good Doctor, who was donning additional layers of biohazard protection with astounding alacrity, "so if you gentlemen would be so kind as to monitor from this side of the glass, we have an historic discovery to make in the name of Science."

Yeah, undoubtedly a living, breathing mad scientist trope, but I had stopped wondering at the curious turns life takes after my ride in a quantum hyperbolic minivan.

As Doctor Connors passed from the clean room's sterile gowning area into the glass enclosure, Ben made final checks on the equipment and hurriedly explained the test we were to witness.

"Doctor Connors doesn't speak much during a test - he generally prefers to prerecord his hypotheses and postscript his observations, to keep his mind free to absorb the empirical data in the moment.”

Did I detect a hint of hero worship in my cousin's tone?

On the other side of the glass, Connors had climbed into the chair and pulled the tray around to his left side. His right arm, a malformed and mottled thing that might have passed for that of a child having survived third degree burns but never recieved skin grafts, was exposed to just above the elbow. He lifted it with his left hand, maneuvering and placing it like an inanimate object, with -so it appeared to me- some long-held resentment for its frailty. He strapped it to the chair's arm at the wrist and crook of the elbow.

"This test is the culmination of several months' set up," Ben continued, "The Doctor has been treating himself daily with CRISPR-Cas9 injections, tailored from a genetic cocktail derived from animals with regenerative traits."

The Doctor, finished with his preparations, looked to Ben, and mouthed something, pointing to the camera. The glass was soundproof. Ben checked that all systems were go, hit the record button and offered a thumbs up in response.

Connors picked up a rather disturbingly large syringe - the kind that has embedded an ancestral terror in all western society's children of annual checkups - and plunged it with a violent lack of preamble into the upturned middle of his right forearm. He didn't even flinch, but I certainly did.

"That's an adrenal hormone and stimulant compound designed to accelerate metabolic regeneration," said Ben.

As if the syringe wasn't enough, next Connors picked up a scalpel. With an attentiveness to his work shared by coroners running behind on their daily dissection quota, he ran a wide, seemingly careless slice down the meat of that same forearm.

I cringed audibly, adding a new item to the list of things I don't enjoy in the category of gratuitous violence: self mutilation. Ben was too intent on the "procedure" to notice my discomfort.

An HDMI cable linked the camera's footage to the computer monitor, and I did my best to avert my gaze to the zoomed in, gruesomely hi-def footage Ben was scrutinizing.

"The Doctor's hypothesis is that if he can pretreat with the metabolic compound before an expected trauma, the subsequent physical damage will trigger an immediate regenerative response. Such a process could save millions of lives in war torn regions, allowing victims of IUDs, for example, to make full recovery from wounds that would have otherwise been lethal."

The wound in the Doctor's desiccated flesh was deep and undoubtedly traumatic. Blood welled in the wound, but didn't run - instead it coagulated and sealed over with astounding speed.

When before I couldn't have looked without the threat of retching on an empty stomach, now I couldn't look away. Before our eyes, the wound gradually knit itself closed.

The timer in the lower corner of the monitor ticked off half an hour, by which time the gaping cut had taken on the appearance of a shallow gash that had been properly bandaged and treated for three or four days at least.

Connors looked up, somewhat paler than before (I would guess healing at such a rate would drain a body's nutrition pretty quick), but wearing a thin, close-lipped smile.

Ben shut off the camera, and rushed in to help the Doctor unfasten his arm. His motions were clumsy and feeble now, on the verge of fainting.

When they reemerged from the gowning room, I took position under Connors' left arm, Ben supporting his right.

"Gentlemen," the Doctor's voice was weak, but triumphant, "I think we've earned ourselves a celebratory banquet. Onward, to the commissary!"

Having eaten nothing since the previous evening in preparation for a seven hour car ride, I certainly had no objections.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ON HIATUS PENDING COMPLETION.  
> AVENGING KNIGHT-SPIDER #1 WILL RETURN AS A FEATURE-LENGTH NOVEL: 11/26/2020


	8. An announcement from the author

Due to some technical difficulties (my laptop decided to die on me, and I'm able to write only on breaks at a work computer via email correspondence because the work computers do not support Google drive, where I do the majority of my writing), I'm having to extend my original deadline, which was 10/31, even further. 

I'm going to aim for Thanksgiving, Thursday November 26th, 2020, because I'll be so very thankful if Murphy's Law will leave me be until then.

To my readers who continue to wait patiently, I am so very grateful for your continued patience - I'm working on Chapter 11 presently, and I've outlined 19 chapters and an epilogue, so you can expect an action packed full-scale novel when you check back in November.

In hopes that one day I'll earn the clout to end with my own version of Excelsior! 

-Joshua S. Norstein


End file.
